mud | drycrikjournal

Highwater debris,

enough to measure peak flow

gauging stations miss.

We’ve begun naming creeks

that flood the dry draws,

pull nominees from our histories

while exchanging guffaws.

We have become the helpless

prisoners of the weather,

of flatland floods and saturated mud,

resisting cabin fever.

Roads and fences, trees to cut,

our work comes to a halt—

no need to fuss, cows don’t need us

with water, grass and salt.

How good to see that the sky is still blue! We’ve logged another 1.76″ rain since New Year’s Day, extending our gray days to nearly three weeks straight.

Not one to be caught complaining about rain, we spent New Year’s morning reenacting Corb Lund’s The Truck Got Stuck when I went to winch the local Audubon, on their Christmas Bird Count, out of our ‘dobe Flat – getting stuck myself, and then my son’s truck come to rescue me, breaking a chain and a cable before we were able to send them on their way as it began to pour. Bob and I, still embedded in the clay, had to enlist the good nature of our neighbors, pickups winching, leapfrogging backwards, one after another out of the bog to terra firma.

Always humorous once you’re out of the mud, I emailed an audio clip of Corb’s song to Rob Hansen, group leader, who has since rewritten Corb’s lyrics to more accurately fit our landscape and circumstance. All’s well that ends well – no feeling more helpless than being stuck in the mud a long ways from the road home in the rain.