March is here, and with it slush and snow so dirty and heavy that it seems to weigh everything down. In Maine, even in good times, tempers are short in March, and in bad times, well, tempers are that much shorter. Unfortunately, this is also the time of year when Maine towns start addressing their yearly budgets, sometimes through town meetings, where everyone gets to vote, and sometimes through council meetings, which are open to to the public but elected officials do the voting.

Let’s just say that right now, times are not good for Maine towns. Unless the legislature takes action, state aid to towns is being drastically reduced, and towns, in turn, must either slash their own budgets and reduce services, or they must raise property taxes. The problem is, everyone likes services, but no one seems to want to pay for them. My husband calls this magical thinking—you can have it all and still have low taxes. Well, you can’t. Plain and simple.

A few nights ago, my husband, Clif, and I went to a town meeting where we learned that if the current state budget is approved, our town will have to deal with a $650,000 shortfall, chump change by some standards but serious money for our small town. So cut, cut, cut. Cut the budget to the rec program. Cut the budgets for police, fire, and ambulance departments. Cut the budget for plowing the roads. Cut hours to the town hall. Cut hours to the transfer station. Cut the budget for the library. This is a horrid example of trickle-down economics at a time when people and towns are struggling and need more aid rather than less aid. And the bigger the pool, the easier it is to come up with that aid.

What to do during these gray days? Go to town meetings, of course, and speak up where it is appropriate to do so. Write letters to state senators and representatives.

For me, a homemaker, it is a time to cook and clean and chop wood. Keeping busy and physically active helps. Today, I’ll be making crackers and a cream cheese spread to take to a Maine Food Writers Meet-up in Brunswick. Tomorrow, homemade pizza and granola cookies. When I go out with the dog, I scrounge the woods for good-size branches that have blown down, branches I can saw into pieces for the wood furnace.

But beneath this activity is an anxiety that things won’t come together, that the scrooges will have their way, that we won’t all pitch in to make sure that cities, towns, and people have the services that make life comfortable and indeed, in some cases, worth living.

Spring and summer are coming. The sap is running, and it promises to be a good year for maple syrup. There are glimmers of hope. But in the meantime, gray, gray, gray.