March is mud mucking, slop, sucking, streams flowing, grass growing, calves running, colts sunning, redwings singing, “Winter’s gone, and spring is springing.” ~Ginny Neil
Spring is all about the mud, and March is the messiest time of year. We’ve had steers around the house all winter, and the thawing ground outside the board fence is a quagmire. The chickens live on the other side of this mess and that means a trip to gather eggs requires muck boots and sometimes a walking stick if the mud is particularly slick.
By the time I’ve walked to the henhouse and back, there is an inch of gloopy mud stuck to the bottom of my boots. It’s impossible to scrape off before entering the house. I always laugh when I look at “farmhouse style” magazine photos of mud porches decorated with white cabinets and walls. The art directors of those periodicals have obviously never visited an actual working farm.
And yet, all this mess is part of a promise. I heard the first whisper of it last night when I stepped out and heard the peepers. The jingle of their love song was faint and far off, but the promise of warmer weather was there.
Mud means that the ground has thawed enough for taking soil samples as well. Since my youngest son came home from college with a master’s degree in agriculture he has made sure that we sample the soil in all our fields every spring so that we can check the pH, the nitrogen, the phosphorus and the potash levels. We also get a snapshot of the current micronutrient load. All this information helps us decide where we need to apply ground limestone to raise the pH. Depending on what will be growing in the fields, which for us is mostly grass, we will also amend the soil to address any other nutrients the plants might require.
When my youngest was working on his master’s degree, he gathered data for a phosphorous and soils study being conducted by researchers at Virginia Tech. His job was to contact area farmers, visit their farms and collect soil samples, hay samples, grass samples and manure samples. The first three were fairly easy to obtain, but the manure was trickier.
Youngest spent many afternoons trailing a herd of cows around a field waiting for one to raise her tail. As soon as the warm dung was deposited, he rushed in, scooped up a small sample and tucked it into a tubular bag. Each sample was labeled as to point of origin and stored in a cooler. When he had enough samples they were deposited in a freezer where they were held until he had enough to send to the lab. The freezer he used was mine.
The bags were stored in a box and were not in contact with any of the food in my freezer, so there was no cross contamination. But, I did warn friends, poking around in there, that there was no such thing as a chocolate freezie pop.
The results of the study were used to determine the impact that farm feeds and hay production practices have on the watershed. My son and his dad are always trying to find that sweet balance between feeding the fields and protecting the rivers that run through them. Yearly soil samples are one of their best practices.
I like to imagine that when God created the world, he dug deep into the oceans and made piles of mud that He patted into the mountains where I live. And because there was no one there to say, “Don’t track that mess into the house!” He kept right on. His muddy mess was the beginning of a beautiful world. The muddy mess inside and outside my house is food for the plants that are waiting to rise. It’s a symptom of the birth of spring.
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2025 issue.
