Our February thaw is upon us, and it has turned the 20-plus inches of snow received during January until now into a soupy, sloppy mess. It has been four years since we’ve had to deal with mud and ruts that are axle deep – think 2019’s Bomb Cyclone and I don’t believe I need to elaborate more.

It has become an adventure to plan trips to town as we need to calculate where the water from the rapidly melting snow has or still is going over the road. Which culverts are running and where the water is creeping up the ditches to find a path over the road? Are the ruts deep enough to bury the car, or should we take the pickup for a somewhat higher clearance?

Daily we issue cautions and advise which routes are the lesser of several evils when people want to drive to the farm. Four-wheel-drive is a must and is on from the time we leave the driveway until we get to the highway.

Sadly, right now, the safest route to avoid getting stuck isn’t the direct three-mile drive west to the highway. It was until last night when the water flowing down our mostly dry creek ran across the road by the neighbors to the west. Despite a load of gravel that was dumped and graded into the massive trench that had formed the last month, the dip is back and sloppier than before.

It is nearly impossible for any of us living on gravel roads to take a direct route to our destination, no matter what direction we may be headed. Road closures are popping up more frequently. One poor semi was buried axle-deep on a county road southeast of town last week when it attempted to find an alternate route to Highway 30 when the railroad tracks by our local tractor dealership were closed to repair a crossing arm pole. The attempt to pull the trailer out was unfortunately unsuccessful and resulted in said axle being ripped out.

A Southsider friend looks down the mile from her driveway to be sure the way is clear before she turns into the road as there is one track and one track only. Meeting someone is sure to result in one party or the other sliding into the ditch, four-wheel-drive or no fourwheel-drive. The only safe places to meet right now are intersections or some farm drives, and the safety of those two options is often debatable.

Our current situation is history repeating itself. I recall my maternal Grandfather Spengler regaling us with tales of February roads in Northeast Nebraska from back at the turn of the century. Roads were narrower and not nearly as well-packed and graveled as they are today. Add in the fact that the hills in that part of the state didn’t get the nickname “Bohemian Alps” for nothing and you can visualize the hazard of horse and buggy and horse and wagon travel up and down those roads.

In that era leases for renters were renewed or changed on March 1 and so the last few days in February the county roads were filled with wagons loaded with household goods as those renting homes moved from place to place. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the women holding their breath at the rise of each muddy hill, hoping their wagon can navigate the descent without meeting someone else or risk tipping their few precious pieces of dishes and furniture into the ditch.

Today’s winds will certainly help with drying up some of the slop, but with saturated topsoil and somewhat frozen ground the remaining melt won’t be quickly absorbed. In the meantime, we’ll keep humming to the Paul Simon tune of “Slip, Sliding Away.”