Mud. I was not a fan and used to think of mud as dirty and a lot of work. But the first big winter storm of 2021/2022 in the books and I am now a fan. Mud means melting, temperatures warming, spring water mixing with red clay in the soil, and seeds and plants taking a bath in minerals. So what if a little ends up on the floor at the end of the day? Mud means the sun has come out from the clouds and the dream of a garden is that much closer.
While last year was my first Missouri winter, I spent a good part of it in a sizable house in town. I didn’t get to the cabin until mid-January, so this is my first full winter in the cabin, down a dirt road.
With a wood stove as a primary source of heat, the task of filling the woodshed and making sure the wood was properly seasoned was high on my list. Last winter, we inherited some wood that was not so seasoned and I thought I was deficient in building a fire (too much time with the bellows and too much smoke). This year, with properly seasoned wood, I earned my Girl Scout Campfire Builder badge back. A wood stove is not a campfire, but I was excited that I could keep myself alive.
A storm was forecast and I was stopping at places in town, my usual weekly shopping and a lady at a gas pump told me to be safe. Clerks in a few stores told me to take care. I am happy to report that with supply chain issues causing some holes on store shelves and a big storm approaching, people here are calm and practical. They said that during the start of COVID, there were no toilet paper issues, people bought what they needed as usual. While that was not my experience in a big city, the trade off here is sometimes it’s an hour’s drive for something that I consider basic, like turkey sausage in links or tahini paste.
The day of the predicted storm came…and went. Woo-hoo! It missed us and I went on to wishing people well, wherever it went. Temperatures dropped and the next night, icy rain set in. The tiniest hail plinked at the windows overnight and all was frost covered the next morning.
The best place for information here is Facebook. Local businesses closed, school closed and the fire department’s page asked people to either stay home or be well prepared if they had to get out. I now know which businesses close at the drop of a hat and which wait, staying open as long as possible for people who need them. I checked my bellwether business and it had closed.
It was icy and cold enough for me to skip my walking for the day; that’s a rarity. That night the snow began and it just kept coming, even sideways at times. I didn’t check with a ruler and there were drifts, but the average snow on top of the ice was about seven inches. I know that’s not a lot to my friends further north, but I was in Florida for a long time.
My little dirt road doesn’t get much traffic on a sunny day, but after the storm, only tractors braved the ice. There’s the farm tractor that was moving bales of hay and the following day, the county sent a grader. We stayed put.
“O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
-from Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
It stayed grey out. It stayed cold, but holed up with the right supplies made it cozy and fine. Last winter we hadn’t met neighbors until springtime. Now we knew people and had phone numbers. We knew who could rescue us and who might need rescuing, if it came to that. Even though we didn’t see people for days, it was comforting to know the names and faces of friendly people nearby.
School stayed closed. It brought back memories of New York. As a student, whenever there was snow, I listened to the local radio station for a list of school closings. The younger me was outraged when it didn’t happen. I lived outside of town and once our school bus got stuck out by the neighborhood entrance. A friend’s mother had her kids sled down to the poor, stranded bus driver with a thermos of hot cocoa.
Again Facebook would be one of the places to check for school closings in current times in Missouri, in addition to school websites. No school bus barreled down our snow covered road. The local superintendent was inspired in his announcements as school continued to be closed day after day. So many families lived down icy, dirt roads like mine and even if roads near the school were cleared, the safety of all of the students were in his hands. In inspired posts, he made up apt lyrics and set them to popular tunes. He had different ones each day. Check out: the singing superintendent
Temperatures warmed, first in the thirties, then fifties. We ventured out, gingerly, down the slushy, icy, muddy road. In town, roads were glistening from the melted snow, but were clear of ice. A few kids in snowsuits slid down snowy hills that framed the town square, formed by the big plows in town.
A bit of cabin fever drove us back down our hillside, to set out in chairs in the melting snow, a campfire nearby to keep warm. My first snowy picnic along a rocky ledge. It was the easiest fire ever to put out. Frozen, fluffy water surrounded us; no hoses or buckets necessary.
Holding steady in the fifties, the snow continues to melt and I am okay with the red clay mud that I stomp off my boots and I get out the hose and rinse the car. Winter mud that’s cold and hard on the morning walks past the barren garden will give way to a softer spring variation. Muck boots at the ready, I am dreaming of that garden, full of fresh tomatoes in yellows and reds, parsley and a bushel of basil