We Bought a Farm: Muddin' It

Farming in the mud makes me CRABBY.

I know that the mud is there because it rained. And I know that the rain is very good for our farm. But when I have to feed animals and there is mud, I get crabby. 

And the thing with mud and rain is that it is wet. That's one thing. But when it is cold, it is so much worse. Rain in the summer is one thing. Rain in the winter when the temperature is hovering right under 40 degrees ... ugh.

I can't help it.

I start mumbling under my breath and sighing and puffing a lot. I come into the house with mud all over my boots and under my fingernails.

I tried to move the boy pigs into a less muddy paddock, but it was raining so hard that I couldn't get the latch unlatched and had to give up in despair. This was after slipping and sliding in the mud as I yanked and pulled and wished I had windshield wipers for my glasses. 

My attitude is so important, and I know this. But when it is rainy and muddy, the farm feels muddier. Things have been flying around in the night. There are things that were in the garbage blown up against fences and it just doesn't feel as clean.

I like clean.

Mud isn't clean.

I flash back to when we had a whole slew of rain during our first winter on the farm. Our WWOOFer Dan and I were moving the chickens, and we were in an area that was just soooo muddy. At one point I fell in the mud and Dan laughed. Then he fell, and he didn't think it was quite as funny. It was somewhere in the middle of what felt like weeks on end of trudging through the mud that Dan said he didn't think he wanted to farm chickens after all. 

Did I mention that walking in the mud is hard? Every step feels a lot more difficult and your legs are way more tired.

Okay. Enough complaining. There is good news. It was raining. Nothing was frozen. Water ran. And I didn't even have to water much since it was raining so much.

Bad farming attitude over.

Tomorrow is a new day.

And hopefully a drier one.