Maine Seasons: Mud, or Waiting for Baseball

The sun came out after a week or more of clouds, showers, rain, rain, and more rain! The blue skies and bright sun were so welcome. The dogs wanted to go on their morning walk right away. I call it a walk, but it is really a push-pull-stand-wait-pee-on-everything-smell-everything-taste-some-fresh-grass-or-other-doggie-gold exploratory adventure. Its also like going to a doggie bar to pick up ticks! (I call my dogs "tick magnets, not chic magnets!") Often the dogs need a good toweling off too because...

this is Mud Season, Maine's fifth season that falls between winter and the two weeks of spring we enjoy in June. Everyone's yards are soft and mucky, and everyone's floors are constantly covered in dirt. With a lot of dirt driveways and roads in Maine and after the snows melt and the rains come, its a perfect recipe for mud.

One dog has found a nice big puddle in the woods behind our house. Of course he likes to roll in it as if its a personal pool just for him. (But the bad "B" word (bath) follows, and he hates that.) Between kids, boots, dogs, and baseball cleats, the dirt problem in the house can become a real trial.

We are in full-fledged mud season in Maine.
 Notice the garden is barely starting to sprout green things.

As mentioned above, we are also in the dreaded time that the ticks become active. With the snow gone, the ticks emerge from their winter nests in the leaves and dirt. The lyme disease-plus problems are growing, and the mantra is check, check, check, every time for ticks. There's a wealth of information about what to use to prevent ticks and tick bites, but with a proliferating turkey population, birds, squirrels, skunks, deer, etc., etc., ticks come in from all kinds of sources! The saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is very true in this case, but they still seem to catch us all by surprise. I pick them off my dogs multiple times a day. Thankfully there is now much more information available on the prevention of and treatment for Lyme disease and coinfections that can be transmitted by the various ticks in our area. One excellent resource is the Maine Lyme Disease Support and Education nonprofit that a friend of mine started after her own battle with Lyme. She and her cofounder are a wealth of experience, information, and support!

As for flowers, this is also a season of waiting. Snowdrops and daffodils are starting to show their bright heads in the sunniest spots, but in our yard the green stalks of the perennials are still pushing up through the warming dirt. Only last week I found patches of ice and snow tucked under some bushes near my home.

We are also still waiting to have a season-opening baseball game. Either the weather makes it impossible to play or the fields are just too wet and muddy. I remember during one Little League season, the coaches were wearing their boots to practice. Winter can be so very long here, and while most of the country's high schools are probably nearing the ends of their seasons, we haven't really started ours. May will be a fast and furious month of games.

On the bench, waiting to play.

With all this mud and waiting, I've been thinking about why we continue to stay in Maine. There are many reasons, but I know that coming through a long season of winter makes Maine summers very special. Because it takes extra time to arrive, summer can be so very perfect, with days of sun, pure fresh air, ocean breezes, cool mountain air, humid days that are short-lived, and pristine land and wide spaces on land and sea to stretch, swim, and enjoy summer.

First, we have to get through the trial of mud season! But God's timing is perfect. I love this from the book of Ecclesiastes 3:11:

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

This is the kind of summer day and views we live for in Maine.

Locals: What view is this?