With mud season quickly approaching, talk at the library has turned to gardens! While I am itching to plant some new high bush cranberries and maybe a pear tree or two, others are discussing tapping trees, seed saving, CSAs, greenhouses, and landscaping with stones.

We are emeging from the winter and it feels great! This is my favorite time of year and one of my favorite children’s books that describes my joy for spring is Mud by Mary Lynn Ray:

One night it happens.
Maybe it begins in the warm of the day, and night only releases the scent. But it’s always at night that it happens.
Someone opening a door will notice: earth comes unfrozen.
A cold sweet smell rises in the ground, like sap in the snow.
By morning brown leaves loosen from their frozen drifts and run rattling in the flapping wind.
Small scattered stones, where the sun has seen them, will thaw pools of grass.
The hills will remember their colors.
Winter will Squish, Squck, Sop, Splat, Slurp, melt in mud.
Happy mud.
Stir it. Stick it.
Dig it. Dance it.
Gooey, gloppy, mucky, magnificent mud.
Come spring. Come grass.
Come green.