by Helen Downing, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

Here's mud in your eye, don't muddy the water, stick-in-the-mud, stuck in the mud, slinging mud, your name will be mud, mud pies...

Mud is the glue that binds winter to spring. When it's gone, spring really begins. Although traditionally we think of mud season as a transition between winter and spring, some people even consider it a season in its own right.

Sometimes, in particularly wet years, the mud never totally dries out. Humans have little tolerance for wet summers: Black flies and mosquitoes looking for donors. Ticks dropping from shrubs and trees. Slugs penetrating our gardens, making dainty foliage lacework. Fungi spotting and splattering leaves and flowers. All of it brings gardeners to their knees.

In pre-modern times, mud was everywhere in spring. Traveling often meant following muddy river banks on foot, or "shank's mare." Since a pair of shoes was an expensive purchase, bare feet did the walking and shoes did the "talking" by making a good impression upon arrival.
Children today still consider mud between their toes and fingers a treat, stomping in it, scooping it in their hands, making it into mud pies and balls, gleefully smearing it on buildings, faces, and clothes.

My grandson Oscar experienced "stuck in the mud" at kindergarten one day. Rather than risk losing his boot, he yelped for help, and a nearby "muddy buddy" gingerly galumphed to his rescue. We have all experienced the feeling of being swallowed by the earth as we walked or cavorted in the mud. Especially when small, this can be an unsettling experience. In Oscar's world, spring is an "untrustworthy" season.

Ducks of the puddle-duck family (such as mallards) love mud. Eons ago, they adapted to their watery homes and learned to forage for tiny invertebrates that live in mud, even eating an occasional frog. Anyone who has ever kept ducks knows their love affair with mud. In ponds and lakes we often see them tipped bottoms-up to avail themselves of the delicacies below.

In America birds such as the barn swallow and cliff swallow use mud and mix it with their own saliva to make their nests adhere to shelf-like structures on buildings or cliffs. They might even find an eave of your barn or house a suitable place to nest.

If this bothers you, hold on: Did you know that there is a fine of up to $15,000 and a possible sentence of up to six months in jail for removing the eggs or destroying the occupied nest of a migratory bird? Alternatively, put up chicken wire around overhangs to prevent swallows from nesting up and under eaves.

Since both of these mud-loving birds also eat mosquitoes and other flying insects, you might weigh the advantages of having these flying insect-catchers as neighbors against the temporary inconvenience they might cause.

Last spring rain was abundant, and a small pond formed in a low-lying area my husband was excavating to bury a culvert for drainage. As the pond formed and my husband waited for drier weather to work outside, the cedar waxwings swooped back and forth drinking from the man-made pond.

That experience impressed upon us the importance of water and its companion, mud. It inspired us to create a rain garden nearby to collect water that drains at the base of a forested slope. Strictly speaking, this is an area built to aid storm-water drain while sustaining shrubs and other moisture-loving plants. It may not hold water until fall but in spring and early summer, it becomes nirvana for the birds who've returned ready to set up housekeeping.

The small four and six-legged creatures of spring find muddy, wet places divine. For a short time only, they lay eggs, their young hatch, and begin life in water. Only later, when the water has evaporated and the tiny young have morphed to an adult stage, are they ready to repeat the same patterns their parents have followed for generations, first upon the land and then later, in these same vernal pools.

There are many types of salamanders, including a large aquatic species called mud puppies. The amphibious salamanders and many insects that lay their eggs in streams and pools will travel from their winter homes beneath the frozen mud, and once they have left their progeny upon water, retire to summer shelters.

Since pools like these evaporate with summer's approach, the obvious advantage is clear: no fish to eat the tiny salamander and insect babies. Even though this is a major advantage, there remain others who might find these eggs delicious.

Frogs, turtles, and even larger insects, some that hatch from the same pools as the salamanders, will find them and partake, teaching us a clear lesson in nature: more is often better. Hopefully, of the prolific number of eggs, enough will survive. Here's to mud in your eye!

Photo credit: timparkinson. Some rights reserved.