TURNER — Mud is better than snow; it means the snow is finally retreating.

So mud season, what some call “Maine’s fifth season,” was celebrated Saturday night with Turner’s annual “mud supper.”

The public mud supper, put on by members of the North Turner Union Presbyterian Church, is their way of saying “good riddance” to winter.

There were some seasonal touches at the town hall.

Take the entry way. To get into the hall, attendees had to cross lake-size mud puddles on planks. (OK, maybe pond-size mud puddles.)

Inside, tables were graced by centerpieces of L.L. Bean boots, holding bright yellow daffodils.

The fragrance of carb-heavy, delicious food wafted in the air with not a green salad in sight. Brown- and gold-colored food paid homage to mud. There was macaroni and cheese, beans, hot dogs, ham, scalloped potatoes, brown-hued chili containing seven pounds of hamburg, coleslaw, green bean casserole, shepherd’s pie and rolls.

On the dessert table were more brown items: Chocolate cream pie, “dirt” cake, brownies, cupcakes, chocolate squares, cookies, whoopie pies and gummy worms.

The first public supper of the season was so well attended, there were no chairs left for some attendees to sit down and eat. Some ate their dinner standing, but they didn’t seem to mind.

The dinner “gets us all out after a long winter,” said Martha Hodgkins, who made two green bean casseroles, scalloped potatoes and brownies.

“And people don’t have to cook,” said supper organizer and Sun Journal gardening columnist Jody Goodwin.

They joined a chorus, taking delight that the winter’s over.

“Terrible,” Hodgkins said of the winter.

“Way too much snow,” Goodwin agreed. “People ask me, ‘Jody, do you have crocuses yet?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Probably, but they’re under two feet of snow!’”

Punk House, 79, described the winter as, “Awful. It’s been the coldest I can remember. One morning where I live — and I’m not from Turner, I’m from North Turner — it was 35 below.”

House, who used to run a Turner market, said he’s not a big fan of mud, “but it don’t last long.” Spring is right behind the mud, he said.

He shared a mud joke about an enterprising farmer who was busy hauling out vehicles stuck in the mud. “They asked him, ‘What do you do when you’re hauling people out?’” House said. “He said, ‘I’m hauling water in.’”

Inside the kitchen, chili chef Garrick Grant said he made 20 pounds of chili because he likes to make it. It’s become a tradition.

“I don’t even have to sign up for it,” he said.

After Meredith Biggs walked the mud plank, balancing her big pot of shepherd’s pie, she sat down to eat with grandson, Ben Small, 28, of Augusta.

“I came to visit my gram,” said Small, who grew up in Turner. He goes to mud suppers pretty much every year.

“Everything’s good,” he said of the food.

Sitting near the door and the donation basket was Shirley Mahaney, 83, who bragged she was among the oldest members of the congregation. She wouldn’t dream of missing the mud supper.

“I come every year. Every year I sit here, too,” she said with a smile.

Her way of getting through the winter was spending time with family. She enjoyed a trip to Florida to see her granddaughter, and she has two daughters who live nearby in town.

Mahaney is looking forward to grass replacing the melting snow and mud in her yard.

“My door yard doesn’t look good,” she said.

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