It is mud season.

As beautiful as spring can be, there is always Mud Season to count on.  When the frost comes out of the ground as the snow melts, everything gets.

Squishy.

Our gravel roads become some of the most interesting places to drive.  Ruts and yellowish mud are items to contend with.  If the car is washed in town and you drive 1 mile on the squishy road, your car will be covered in road mud by the time you get home.

Our dooryard has become the annual 'swamp'.  It usually clears up as the frost leaves and the driveway hardens again.  This year after construction, hubby said we'll redo this section of the driveway.
Right now I'm looking at all of the gravel and mud that has been plowed onto the grass and think of endless hours of raking.

Surprisingly enough, daffodils are beginning to peek out from the ground!  I haven't found the crocuses yet, but they should have been first.

Morris and I went down into the valley to see if the Skunk Cabbage flowers had poked up through the snow yet.

Morris got muddy, and I got muddy.  We stopped near a spring in the creek.

We found treasures that had been hidden by the snow.  An antler shed, an interesting rock, and hip bones from perhaps a raccoon.

The creek was fairly low for this time of the year.  But I expect the rains that we are going to get may help a bit with that.

The valley felt so warm, I left my jacket hanging in a downed tree that I would pass by on my way back up the valley.

PeeWee's Valley

  

The hillside trails were pretty treacherous.  Which basically means any way I chose to hike was treacherous.  The north facing hillsides were icy and slippery. Any other trail was just muddy and slippery.
I found that I could slide on my rear end quite well while holding my camera in hand.

My backside accumulated some mud.

We found no skunk cabbage yesterday.  But today is supposed to be 70 degrees and rainy.  I think that should bring up the flowers!

I do love winter, but when spring comes along there is the excitement of new growth and warm weather.

I expect at some point this month to get some more winter like weather, spring usually never comes this early to our part of the world.