It’s the time of year when the boots become the popular foot covering of choice.  During the drought they sit quietly neglected in the garage, collecting dust, getting kicked about where they are no longer matched pairs anymore, becoming dark homes for the whatevers that wander the garage when no one is out there.

But now, they are so important.  It always takes a few trips with the errant braggadocio of…………..I can make it to the truck………..Or, no problem getting the mail……………..Or………..I’m just going to turn off the hose.  The expletives, the slips, the overly-oozed muddy clogs, the prat falls, the unidentifiable socks.

And that’s when the “wellies” get pulled out.  There’s been a minimum of six months that a human foot hasn’t been put in them.  Usually other things have taken up residency in them.  Once a matched pair is located, the right one is behind the water heater the left is under the tool cabinet.  The garage has to be searched for the boot pairs of a family of four’s wellies, plus the obligatory extra generic pair for the visitor with inappropriate foot-gear.

Sometimes they have to be pulled out of webs, no, not suspended from the ceiling like a bad SyFy movie, but veiled and clouded in a corner behind a lot of cobwebs & dust & roach casings.  It is ALWAYS imperative to tap out, shake out vigorously………..blow-torch out whatever was in there from the previous off-season.  It’s imperative.  There are such an assortment, a veritable potpourri of “things” that could be in there.  One of the least dangerous, but most painful is the lone kibble of dried dog food.  How is it that it can become embedded up to your calf as soon as you put your foot in your boot and take a step onto that thing?

Yesterday we had to go out and had to navigate from the side garage door to the truck, which was parked on the drier side of the driveway nearer the road.  We had on our “go out” shoes.  There was no way they would be in an acceptable condition for a doctor’s office after negotiating the mud in between the house and the truck.  We had to put on the wellies and carry our good shoes, then when we got to the truck we changed shoes and left our boots in the bed of my daughter’s truck until we got home (on their sides so they wouldn’t collect the rain).  Some people just get into their cars in the garage and drive where they need to go.  No luxury like that here.  We need to plot our strategies.

Now keep in mind, that was how we deal with the easy mud.  The pasture/barn mud is a category all its own.  “Boot Sucking Mud”.  As the summer progresses the mud gets oozier and the secure bottom becomes deeper and deeper.  On and about the end of August we have to keep an eye on the top of our wellies when we are traversing barn mud, because it gets that deep.  We know the routes to take and the atolls in the quagmire to aim for for safe haven.

Then there is always the horse with the warped sense of humor.  For those of you who have watched the horse “Maximus” in Disney’s movie “Tangled” or “Angus” in Disney’s “Brave”, we have a couple of characters like them in our pasture.  The most likely to give you a shoulder-shot into the deepest mud, or to stop abruptly and bring you up shorter than expected and make you do an involuntary mud-angel……………are there ever voluntary mud-angels?  Bell is more like “Captain” in 101 Dalmatians.  But Magick and Mystic———definitely Maximus and Angus respectively.  Magick is a big gray Percheron and my elder daughter’s horse.  My daughter’s a good rider and Magick loves to be a challenge in every aspect of her life.  She loves to bolt through the mud right past you (with those dinner plate-sized hooves).  The most likely to see that you are mired in the mud with insurmountable boot suction.  That’s when she walks over by you and leans on you until you loose your balance and splat in the mud.  The most likely to drink from a nearby mud puddle and then sneeze all over you.  Yep, Magick and Maximus are virtually interchangeable.

Mystic another black Percheron and my daughter’s horse too (there’s a pattern emerging here) is the smartest one of the herd.  She organizes the rest of the girls to parade past at a trot while you’re stuck in the mud.  You know splatters from barn-mud/muck don’t even come out with bleach.

I try not to buy clothes that are plain colors.  Patterns, plaids, prints work out better here.  After a summer of non-bleachable splatters, it’s the patterns that wear the best.

Boot Sucking Mud Season is here.