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It’s funny how quickly you can get used to adverse conditions as part of your day-to-day existence. Some people are better at this than others, I suppose, but we do what we have to do. I never thought I’d be so casual about slopping through ankle-deep mud every day just to get my mail. When I first moved to the country, I resented the fact that the carrier didn’t bring the mail to my door, as I’d been used to in town. Now, pretty much anything goes.
I still don’t like the mud, but I don’t mind it as much as I thought I would. It helps that I have a routine, although the routine has some flaws. If I forget to turn on the answering machine before I put my boots on, I have to take the boots off to go back and turn it on, because I won’t walk across the formerly white carpet in those boots.
Trudging out there and back isn’t the problem. I’ve even taught myself to walk through the watery parts instead of the icky brown stuff, because the puddles are bound to be lower to the actual bed of rock that is still under all that mess. Every time I drive the car through it, I try to hit the same ruts, not only for the car’s sake but also to give myself a walkway for the next time I need one.
The hardest part for me — and I know this is ridiculous — is cleaning off the boots before I go into the house. I find a dry paving stone to set the mail on, then climb up through the lamb’s-ear to the garden hose, which I turn on myself in the vain hope that I can get the water to spray the bottoms of the boots without spattering all over my Levi’s. That never happens, and I’m soaked through by the time I get into the house and deposit the boots in the disposable roasting pan that sits just inside my front door. | 
