Mud Season Again

My least favorite time of year has arrived. (Again.) Mud, mud, mud. With this lovely oceanless beachfront property, the mud is really bad. It's almost like quick sand. It sucks up your shoe the moment you step on it and slides easily. I'm glad most of our land is flat. No wonder the Bible says the foolish man built his house upon the sand.

Jim has insisted from the start that I be careful not to dug up the driveway trying to park. I have been quite careful, and will park on the flat instead of our usual spots on the hill if the ground is too wet, but lately, Jim has been, well, different.

The other day, he chided me for not parking in the normal spot and proceeded to put the car there anyway. I was glad he did, for had I, the ruts the car made would normally have irritated him.

And then Jim and I went out for lunch yesterday. When we came home, he had trouble backing the van into it's parking spot on the hill. So Jim did what he always tells me not to do--dig up the driveway.

Back and forth, back and forth we went, flying mud everywhere. Ten minutes later he finally rocked it in true back-woods mud-bogging style over the small pit he'd made in the hill. The final ruts in the driveway ran deep.

No big deal--easy fix. He smoothed it over in a short time with the tractor. (I guess he figured since he was willing to fix it before he made the mess, that digging up the driveway was OK, but I doubt he would have been calm had I made the same mess.)

On the way to take the kids to school this morning, it was a little rough driving in the van over the hardened mud bumps and mini ruts the tractor left, but we made it. And then I pulled out onto the main road. The front end clunked hard, like I had hit a huge pot hole. Funny. I hadn't seen one. Twenty feet down the road, it suddenly did it again. Two mysterious pot holes?

I turned onto the side road to the school and stopped at the stop sign. When I pulled out, I turned to the right but the steering stiffened to a stop like I'd lost power steering. Unable to turn it further, I made a super wide turn, glad nothing was coming from the other way right then. I proceeded with caution the 200 yards to the school. Something was definitely wrong with the steering.

On the way back home, it didn't stiffen again, but the steering radius was much smaller when turning right. Jim must have broken something in his "harmless" persistence to conquer driveway mud. I guess 12-passenger vans just aren't meant for mud bogging.

I don't think it's totally his fault, though. Well, maybe it is. A few times within the past several months, the steering clunked on me when turning right in the driveway to position the van to back up. Jim had told me it was nothing but the wheel rubbing on the tire well. That wasn't what it sounded like to me, but he's supposed to be the vehicle expert around here, so my only choices were to be a nag or drop the issue. I chose to drop it, but brought it up again because I had forgotten what he said the first time. The second time, I not only dropped it, but also believed him.

Silly me. Whatever the clunking was really from, I bet is now sitting broken in the front end. I guess it will have Jim's attention now.

And now I REALLY know why one shouldn't fight to back up in the mud. Jim was right all along. I'm glad I listened to him. Now maybe he will listen to himself, too.