For much of the year we live with farm muck, a unique mix of rain, snow, ice, mud, manure and trodden dirt. Farm muck is not like any other kind of muck. It sticks to your shoes, sometimes sucking them right off of your feet. Farm muck is at its most intense when there is rain or after a snowstorm, and hooves flatten it and grind it up, mix it with hay, gravel, soil and much manure. It has a unique smell, it clings to pants and splatters on jackets and coats. Dogs reek from it – it sticks to their undercoats. Even chickens avoid it. People who live on farms cannot avoid it, they just try and have high boots that come on and off easily, boots that can be left by the door. Farm muck is one of the reasons for coats for the sheep – to keep it off the wool. The best thing about the dry part of summer is that there is little farm muck.