Our Future is Mud

The weather geeks at work have been talking about some statistics for our city.  The normal rainfall for our town is forty-seven inches.  In 2018 we got nearly seventy-two inches!  That's twenty-five extra inches of rain!  No wonder the garden was such a challenge last year.  Here's some weather data for our city:  

A friend was complaining about his backyard, and saying that the foot traffic from his two dogs has destroyed his grass this winter, he has to mop the floor every day, wash the dogs, he's gone through three bales of straw, and that he's probably going to have to re-sod the whole thing in the spring.  I pointed out to him that many of the top ten wettest years have happened relatively recently.  In fact, six of ten years have happened in our lifetime, so it seems to me he needs to plan for the mud of the future.  If the trend is for more and more rainfall, maybe a grassy back yard for his dogs isn't the answer.  Our future is mud, so we better start making plans for it.  

Here are the paving stones that Brandon plopped down in a desperate attempt to get our feet out of the mud last winter.  They are sinking into the earth!  The chickens don't mind muddy feet, but I would like to re-design our pathways with better spacing and with something under the stones, like gravel, that will keep them out of the mud.  I'll try to remember the mud this summer when it's a good time to rethink the path.  

If it's not very cold, the donkeys will stand in the rain instead of inside their shelter.  Their hair dries into little curls that feel crusty when they dry, like they used too much hair gel. 

The places they walk have no more grass, just mud. 

They have been living in the smallest fence for weeks now, and they have eaten almost all of the vegetation, despite the hay I give them twice a day.  I decided it was better to sacrifice this small pasture to them this winter than to let them destroy the bigger pasture where the goats live. The goats don't like to get their feet wet, so they stay out of the mud and in the barn when it's wet.  The donkeys are so hard on the ground that I can't imagine the damage a cow could do on this clay soil.  Actually, I can imagine it because I drive past my neighbors cow pastures every day and watch the muddy rivulets of water flow from the over grazed pastures into the creek.  Not so good for water quality.  Sometimes the cows are up to their knees in mud, clustered around the wet hummocks of hay that remain from the round bales that are given to them.   

I was doing fine with the mud until my muck boots sprung a few leaks.  Now I get a muddy toe, which isn't so good for my socks.  Walking in mud to carry hay and food for the animals is like resistance training, right?  All my steps should count for double since the earth is anchoring me down with each sucking step.