The spring issue of ML Blue Mountains (Ontario) is out now!
Mountain Mama: Mud and Magic
Around here, spring seeps in, one muddy driveway at a time. One trail of paw prints across the kitchen floor. One afternoon where the sun lingers just long enough that you don’t rush inside for dinner.
The spring equinox comes quietly, carrying its own kind of magic. Equal light, equal dark: a fleeting moment of balance before the days tip forward again. It’s a cosmic reset built into nature itself, reminding us that nothing stays frozen. That even after long winters, renewal is always possible.
For families in the Blue Mountains, spring is a shoulder season in the truest sense. Not winter. Not summer. A constant dance between the two. We stack skis and boards in the garage, edges still damp with memories. We tuck away ski helmets, mitts and toques, knowing they’ll be needed again. In their place appear rain boots by the door, bikes, the requisite summer entourage of helmets and waterproof shells to layer over ultra-light down that somehow works for snow flurries and sunburns in the same week.
The furnace starts cycling less. We crack windows open at night. Mornings suddenly feel easier with 60 per cent less gear to wrestle onto small humans before school. Coffee tastes better when the sun is already hitting the kitchen counter. The snow tires debate begins. (My rule of thumb is April 15. Also my husband’s birthday. Coincidence? Maybe. Tradition? Absolutely.)
The trails tell the real story. Packed snow softens to ice. Ice gives way to mud. Mud gives way to that first stubborn green pushing through last fall’s leaves. Wild leeks start cutting through the forest floor in the Kolapore Uplands, sharp and bright and alive after months of sleeping under snow.
Mornings suddenly feel easier with 60 per cent less gear to wrestle onto small humans before school.
Spring here isn’t clean or curated. It’s messy. Transitional. Honest. Which is exactly what motherhood feels like most of the time. The equinox is about balance, but not the kind you see on wellness posters. It’s not perfect symmetry. It’s standing in mud while the sun hits your face. You can still be tired, and feel things getting easier. You can still carry winter’s weight, physical and emotional, and feel momentum coming back into your life.
Mountain winters ask a lot of families. Logistics alone could be an Olympic sport. Layers. Illness cycles. Record-breaking snow days. Workdays that start and end in the dark. Winter is survival season. Spring is when you remember you’re a person again, not just the keeper of mittens and snack inventories. As the clocks spring forward, everything else follows. Days stretch. Energy shifts. Après migrates from fireplaces to tailgates.
You feel it in your body. You see it in your kids. The days feel long, but the years feel shockingly short. Spring has a way of holding both truths at once. Nature doesn’t rush the thaw. It just keeps moving forward, reminding us that renewal is constant, balance is flexible and growth happens best when we let it unfold.
Parenting, like mountain seasons, is never static. It’s gear piles and growth spurts and emotional weather systems and unexpected bluebird days. It’s half winter still living in the back of your car and half summer already living in your imagination.
Spring arrives in inches of daylight. In open windows. In muddy boots. In laughter that sounds lighter than it did in February. And every year, without fail, it reminds us: Nothing stays frozen. Not the ground. Not our kids. Not us.
Out here, we mother right inside the changing seasons. –Bryn Honeywood
Check out the full issue here. Pick up a print issue at the usual rad spots throughout the Blue Mountains region.
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