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Beginning in 2018 "Ruth's Neighborhood" entries were also posted on Ruth's FACEBOOK page where her entries (usually weekly, on Sunday mornings) lead to lively conversations.

This Page: April - (June) 2025

MUD-LUSCIOUS

April 6, 2026

          In March folks start talking ruefully about “the fifth season”: mud season. Warnings remind us to be careful, to stay off dirt roads. Yes! When Wanda and I are doing errands we don’t take the dirt-roads shortcuts to the main road; we take the long way around on paved roads. I remember one spring when Don and I were young and brave and taking our usual scenic route from Sandwich to nearby Tamworth over a covered bridge, onto a dirt road. Don suddenly stopped the car, got out, and walked forward, testing the ground. He said, “Nope!” (more colorfully) and we turned back.
          The Sandwich Board and the Meredith newspaper had this March announcement: “Mud Season Trail Update. Each year the Squam Lakes Association, in conjunction with landowners who allow public access to their land, temporarily closes sensitive trails around Squam. As the snow melts, muddy conditions force hikers to move off the trails onto the softer ground on the side. This loosens rocks, weakens trees, and creates erosion. In order to protect the network, please avoid hiking on closed trails until we reopen them when conditions dry up!
          “The following trails are CLOSED as of 3/21: Rattlesnake network, Squam Range, Mt. Morgan Trail, Mt. Percival Trail, Crawford Ridgepole Trail, and Cotton Mountain Trail.
          “Here are some alternative hikes that are OPEN while you wait: Belknap Woods, Whitten Woods, Chamberlain Reynolds Memorial Forest, Red Hill, Castle in the Clouds.”
          When I read the trail names, full of memories, they seemed like poetry to me. And now it’s April, National Poetry Month, and I’m thinking of the mud in e.e. cummings’s “Chanson Innocente.” As I’ve mentioned here before, Don and I always reread and recited this poem during mud season, laughing:

In just —
Spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloon-man

whistles     far     and     wee.

And eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring,

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloon-man whistles
far     and     we
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
       spring
                and
                        the
                                goat-footed
balloon-man     whistles
far
and
wee    

© 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

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