We had some notable firsts this winter. According to our faithful UPS driver, our driveway was the hardest to drive up of any driveway on his extensive route (think long, steep and shaded, which can translate to icy), and the Fed Ex driver told us just yesterday that our little stretch of Mount Israel Road is the muddiest of any road in his delivery area. Frankly, it’s crazy muddy! I’ve taken to parking at my mother’s house on the farm (just a short distance on the dirt part of the road) and walking up through the dripping wet woods to my house. Fortunately we have two different trails that link our house to the farm. Rubber boots, though, are a must. While I was snapping the photo of Todd (see below), Steve popped out of the sugar house (he was in the middle of a boil) with a volume of Robert Frost poems. He read aloud this stanza from “Two Tramps in Mud Time”:
The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching-wand,
In every wheelrut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.
I am not making this up. This is a highly literate and cultured farm ~ there is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, circa 1953, in the barn. Also pictured below is our good neighbor Randy Brown with his Jack Russell on board the tractor valiantly raking the muddy road!
Randy to the rescue!
This is my 33rd mud season on Mt Israel Rd and this one gets the blue ribbon!
One can never say country living is boring!
Dear Diane, I will pull you out of a muddy rut. I know you would do the same for me 🙂