I think I’ll start this column with a haiku.
A mouse takes shelter
Tickle of newborn snowflakes
Footprints on my boot
If you want the story behind that, you’ll have to ask me in person. Greetings from Dancing Rabbit. This is Ben with the weather. Looking back on the past week is a lot like looking at October, January, and May simultaneously. We’ve had ice, mud, frozen mud, and snowy mud, as well as fog, drizzly fog, spring-like days of sun and warmth, and apparently, as I write this, snow. I love this Midwestern climate! This winter is giving me the opportunity to consider every possible weather extreme as it relates to our future home. (And just how close is that New Madrid fault line anyway?) Where else can I go to experience both below zero temps and 105 degree days for a week a time, all in the same year?
Well I don’t know if this is true*, but I’ve heard that the Inuit have dozens of words describing snow. Well here, in at least my own mind, there are dozens of terms describing mud. In fact I often plan my day around the ritual of stepping out onto Woerhle road and deciding if the mud is passable on a bicycle. It’s not as scientific as a soil sample, but I am something of a proficient judge of roadway viscosity. That sort of greasy mud that you see on a gravel road immediately after it gets wet? A bike can go through that. (Fenders help.) A bike also travels with ease through that gravelly, eroded granola-textured stuff, but what I like to term gelatinous peanut butter mud has a tendency to dismount even the most agile of riders. Still, I’ve made it this far without putting on studded tires.
Now, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Dancing Rabbit itself has its own peculiar varieties of mud and detritus during this season. (The not dry one.) Just hear the names, and let your imagination wander: prairie mud, path mud, pond mud, humey mud, construction grade mud, mulch upslash, cob, perma-mud…
Well, if the general theme of this week’s column is sufficiently established for the majority of our readers, I would like to relate two brief anecdotes concerning both mud, and bicycles. One is that I took our 3 year old daughter for a spin early in the week when the mud was slushy and stiff by means of a handlebar mounted child’s seat. Finding the shortcut adrift in snow, we traveled overland, parallel with the ice-choked tire tracks. Dodging ice puddles and frozen cowpies with deft maneuverings, we arrived in Rutledge intact, the child relatively dry and exhilarated, myself splattered with aerosol traces of Woehrle road.
Later that week, the 54 degree day, my aforementioned riding partner and I re-strategized for a ride to Memphis. We would take a road bike this time, with fenders (The thinner wheels slice through mud) and a kids’ trailer on the back. The gravel portion of our ride was similar to a roller coaster. I recall descending down one particularly slick hill, wondering for a moment whether or not bikes could do what this bike was about to attempt. Fortunately, the bicycle is versatile, utilitarian technology, and I quickly discovered the key is to just pedal and ignore my brakes altogether. After one brief dismount we entered the highway and had a smooth cruise to Memphis and back. (Althea slept in the trailer, wrapped in a blanket, to and from.) However, the snow melt that had apparently occurred during our time in town had reduced Woehrle to hog slop, making for a slightly more arduous return. Though completely dry myself, I looked back at the trailer and discovered it was being sprayed with volleys of frothy mud I can only describe as “barley stew frappe”. When we finally parked at Bike World, Althea appeared drizzled with a fine patina of mud. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, and I doubt it, it might have something to do with using fenders and a handlebar seat to keep both parties clean in the event of this kind of travel. Or it might just be that bicycles are legitimate four season vehicles.
But then again, what do I need to know about mud? By morning it will all be frozen solid under a blanket of snow, out of sight and out of mind. I might as well go stand out in it now, and continue to ponder where I’m going to find a cheap, abundant building material.
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community and educational non-profit in Rutledge, Missouri, focused on sustainable living. We offer free tours to the public twice monthly from April-October. For more info you can visit our website www.dancingrabbit.org or call (660) 883-5511.
*According to Wikipedia, this is a highly disputed subject.