From grit to gratitude: The lessons we learn from ‘Mud Month’
From St. Louis, we were driving west to Jefferson City for business on a cold, gray, wet winter morning.
I was in a Ford van with my old boss, Bob Hood. It was the early 1990s. He was an outdoorsman. Our conversation was never about work but about family, fishing, hunting and Missouri history.
Sedalia. Lake of the Ozarks. Fulton. Cape Girardeau.
“So much in Missouri that nobody knows about,” Bob would say.
Of course, as an outdoorsman, Bob had interest in the weather.
“We just have to get through Mud Month,” he said often. “Good things come after Mud Month.”
It’s funny what you hold onto in life. Every February, I remember that simple conversation about February being Mud Month. Bob explained that “Mud Month” was the late winter period when thawing snow, freezing rain, and melting frost create exceptionally muddy conditions.
“Keep your boots out,” he said. “You still need them in Mud Month.”
From that day forward, February has been Mud Month.
From travels, I have learned that “Mud Season” is an informal fifth season in the New England states like Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and northern New York as deep-frozen ground thaws. Mud Season begins in late March and lasts through early June.
Mud Month is an appropriate name for February 2026, as snow melts and it leaves a trail of mud from our cars to homes and vice versa.
Mud Month is one of my favorite – and least favorite – months of the year.
It’s a favorite month because my late dad, Bud Mackin, was born in Mud Month. He would have turned 98 on Feb. 3. I miss the old man. For the record, Dad hated mud because it made his cars dirty, inside and out.
My daughter was born in February, and so was my daughter-in-law. They are bright dots in a cold, wet, dark, muddy month.
Mud Month is a weird month because it has only 28 days, except every four years when it has that random leap year. That’s weird. Every other month has 30 or 31 days. Not Mud Month. This 28-days-in-one-month-only can be unnecessarily challenging for people paying bills. You have three less days to get it all paid, every four years.
Mud Month is highly unpredictable. Cold. Wet. Dark. It can go from 15° to 70° in a matter of days. One day you’re wearing a heavy coat. The next day you’re wearing a short-sleeve shirt. Make up your mind, February! Plus it rains and randomly snows and ice whenever it wants to in February. You can count on mud but little else.
There is a lot going on during Mud Month. There’s Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl, and Presidents Day. It’s Black History Month. So much I never learned in school. And evenings become a little bit longer in Mud Month, too.
I’ve never made a list of my favorite months. I like October because it’s San Diego-like weather here in the Midwest. I’m fond of July, my birthday month. I like all the months of Daylight Saving Time because it allows evening bike rides. March is fun, too, because of St. Patrick’s Day and March Madness. But first, there is Mud Month.
Keep your boots out.
We just have to get through Mud Month.
Good things to come.
