Ah, mud season!

There is nothing so rare

As a day in March,

When brown is the brightest color.

— Wrote nobody ever

Those lines are loosely inspired by James Russell Lowell, an American Romantic poet who wrote many serious things but went seriously gaga in his famous “What Is So Rare as a Day in June?”

Anyone can like June, with flowers popping up like old friends, birds tweeting their happy tunes, the sun working overtime. Even earthworms do a happy dance. Lowell called it the “high-tide of the year,’’ and declared, “then, if ever, come perfect days.”

“Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how:

Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving.

Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue.”

Here in the realm of mud, we are just now shaking off the dregs of March, which leads to April, “the cruelest month,’’ according to T.S. Eliot, a less cheerful poet.

But I don’t know if it’s as bad as all that. In West Lebanon, where nearly all roads are paved, mud season isn’t a severe trial, although in my walks I did see a couple of lawn-bound cars sunk close to the axles.

This mud season follows a winter that wasn’t as mild or concerning as last year, but still lacked the bitter cold of yore, starting at 10 below or less. I miss it. It aids natural selection by chasing off all but the hardiest newcomers.

Recently Vermont Public — I still call it Vermont Public Radio even though I often stream it — had a midday program on mud season. The cheery host tried to dig up swell ideas for enjoying the season, but other than maple sugaring didn’t find much.

Callers said it’s a good time to rest, read, binge-watch TV. One starts seeds under grow lights. No one said conditions are ideal for nursing grudges, although that seems obviously true to me. But that’s a road I don’t want to travel.

The radio guests said the clay and silt of Vermont make world-class mud, but I suppose New Hampshire brand mud is fine, too. If we could persuade residents to pour 40-pound bags of kitty litter as they go, it might help dry things out. But then we might be overrun with cats.

Sometimes when life gives you mud, you have to make, umm, more mud. Maybe put up “free mud” signs and leave cheap plastic buckets for early tourists.

But how to get them here? Attract them with mud festivals, with mud kings, mud queens, mud races, mud dances (mud boots required). Mud season bus tours might be problematic, for obvious reasons. It would be awfully mean to send Tesla Cyber Trucks out on back roads where GPS fails, but how could we resist?

The weather is, of course, bonkers. Since our days feature sun, clouds, snow, sleet, freezing rain and just about everything but rocks falling from the sky, weather is a game of dodgeball. What is there to do but keep moving?

We got a respite recently when our 20-month-old granddaughter, Vivi, graced us with a visit for a couple of days. She is a little fireball, exploring the world like there may be a great discovery on every shelf, around every corner. She raced down the hallways of the Powerhouse as if she owned the place. Likewise a couple of clothing stores. I shadowed her like the queen’s own bodyguard, pleased that I am still quick and limber enough to do the job.

Best of all was a visit to the baby cows at McNamara’s Dairy in Plainfield, where I got a photo of Vivi demonstrating for a long line of bovines how to say “moo.” I think they were duly impressed and will do better now.

One of the farmhands apologized for the mud and puddles, but Vivi saw merit in them. If you have good boots in life, nothing can hold you down. It just so happens that on Tuesday afternoon a gaggle of kids at the Kilton Library storytime sang “I love mud,’’ so even muck has its day.

Though I might grouse about March, it leads to April, then May, and soon after we are off to the races. As Lowell said, “Everything is upward striving.’’ So now we have to wait for the payoff. In just three months comes this:

“Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,

We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,

’Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green.”

Yeah, sure. Check back with me in June.

Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.