MUD MONTH

 LETS THROW SOME MUD

It's that time of year, the ugly month, when the snow that has hidden all our lawn's imperfections has begun its annual recession exposing the repulsive underbelly beneath. April showers may bring May flowers but up north March only brings the soggy sodden brown muck commonly known as mud and when there's mud we all know it's time to pull on the boots and cover the furniture. It's mud month.

After a lengthy four-month stretch when our lawns and open fields have been beautified with a sparkling white blanket of snow it is now time for the protective winter shroud to be lifted and the dead body exposed. Glinting with mica like sparkles under sun-filled days and moon glowing nights

the view out my window is now dull and depressing. I know it's only temporary. I know the matted brown lawn hair will eventually get moussed up into a luxurious green bouffant.

There will soon be little spikes of color popping up through the dreary detritus of down trodden turf in the form of crocuses and daffodils and psychedelic tulips from Holland.

Soon I won't have to struggle putting on my Wellies just to go out to the trash bin

and best of all the pups won't have to be hauled into the tub after every trip outside for a pee or a poop.

Our laundry will move from two loads a day to one a week although this may be wishful thinking.

Hopefully our car will no longer have to carry the salt stains of humiliation where local kids can write "wash me" on our Ford Focus' back window.  Those huge clumps of black frozen goop that build up on our car's undercarriage just behind the wheels will be a thing of the past having melted in huge black puddles on the garage floor. 

It's now time to pull out the rakes and start scraping the decomposing leaves that cover the struggling blades of green underneath.

I will have to get back on the eight- foot ladder to clean out winter's shedding coniferous needles from under our expensive gutter guards. The ones that were once again supposed to prevent me from having to endanger my life from falling from the top step of our wobbly eight-footer. 

The annual plantings and exterior repairs will soon commence. We're constantly reminded that in our temperature zone a late frost can hit you where it hurts so as anxious as we are we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves.

I'll do the gutters. I'll sweep the garage floor. Maybe I'll do a little raking and keep my fingers crossed that the mud will soon transform into the brilliance of spring. 

THE GALLERY

Caravaggio Primavera, Cy DeCosse, photographer, represented by Obscura Gallery