The Saga Of Mud

Or:

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation.

Well, folks, the story this year has been rain, and lots of it, and in an area where there is little concrete or other hardscape, the predictable outcome is mud. Mud, wonderful mud. Anyone know of any practical use for mud? Just wondering, because I happen to have a surplus on hand at the moment.

But I digress.

Observe:

Ordinarily a photograph of a muddy rut wouldn't qualify as remotely informative or interesting, but there is more to tell. Our neighbor's Kubota became mired in this spot on Thursday afternoon and absolutely could not, would not be moved; every attempt to pull out of the slop only resulted in a more stubbornly planted machine.

So, after a few jokes about how our neighbor might have to swim for it, we trudged up to his place to get his truck (although ours is also a 4 X 4, his has more towing capacity). Said truck was positioned in front of the Kubota, which was then chained to the truck hitch, and the fun began. Several minutes (of spinning tires and flying muck) later, not only was the Kubota still sunk in the mud, but so was the truck.

Quick time out for a few chuckles all around. Ah, fun.

After consulting with one another on the matter, and engaging in a bit of experimentation, we arrived at an improvisational method of successively shortening the chain and tightening it as a brace against the motionless pick-up truck, which allowed the Kubota to crawl a couple of feet out of the pit - enough so that DH could lower the struts and use them to lift the machine up and sidle it out onto drier ground.

But still, there was this:

And this:

So, our truck was called into service for a first attempt (that's my neighbor waving - wave back!):

Nope, didn't work, and the concern was that we were going to leap-frog across the field with bogged-down vehicles all afternoon, so in came the sidelined Kubota for one more play:

Voila! Finally.

All the spinning of tires and lurching around of large machines startled a small unidentifiable field creature, and it ran terrified around the vehicles, trying to escape. It wasn't a mouse. I'm not sure what it was - it was rather tiny, brown, with large, dark eyes. I felt sorry for it, so I picked it up by its tail, carried it some distance away and gave it a gentle toss into the brush.

The tiny thing was frightened. I have received mercy on so many occasions in my life; who am I to be hard-hearted, even toward a creature of the fields?

Still. I've come a long way!

In other news: The horses had a good time outside in the mild weather. They rolled around on the wet ground and undid the good brushing out we had given them the night before, as horses will do, turning themselves into great muddy yaks, but it was gratifying to see them enjoying themselves.

Grooming horses is good exercise, so I suspect we'll do it all over again.

And YES. It's raining. STILL.