Ice and Mud

So we have had more snow in December than we have had in one month in - well I can't remember when. Usually snow is gone the same day it falls. Or no more than a day or so. But this time it has been more than a week and we still have snow in our yard. Or should I say ice. It has been so much colder than normal as well as more snow that the snow has not had a chance to melt. Part of the yard still has the frozen snow which gets slicker every day. And part is now a huge mud puddle.
Most of Star pony's pen is now drying fairly well, and the little ponies pen isn't far behind. But poor Nita, my Quarter Horse still have big mud puddles. Especially around her shelter. She has the largest pen and still has the most ice and mud left. One puddle must be at least 3 inches deep in the center.
I know I shouldn't complain. We need the moisture and other parts of the US fight with mud in horse pens most of the winter while we usually don't. But I really dislike having to put the truck in 4-wheel-drive before I can get out of my driveway. We have to do this every once in a while on our dirt road but not in the drive. For some reason all the melted snow seems to have tried to puddle in the drive which is usually hard packed cliche clay. For those that don't live in the desert when cliche clay gets wet is is slick as snot or so the saying goes, which explains why so many people that live out here have pickups with 4-wheel-drive. It is a necessaties. We have had at least one 4-wheel-drive pickup for the past 39 years. And No we do not get out and do that mud bogging thing that is show on TV. We have to fight with cliche mud enough that it is not fun. It is just a matter of getting to the job, store or the doctor and home again.
And poor Tuffee our Border Collie. She has run on the ice until her feet are sore so that she is limping first on one foot then on the other. I have been trying to keep her in but she is determained she is an outside dog (at least in the day) regardless of her feet.

Rains and Dirt Roads

This is what happens when we get our rains in New Mexico on our dirt roads. The water flooding down the roads causes lots of erousion and make ruts and ditches in the road and sometimes washs them out to where they are completely impassable until the wind comes, drys out the sand and blows sand back into the damage that was done. Or else man and heavy equipment repair it so it can happen again during the next rain storm.