Mud woes

Right now, we have mud. Some of it's the decent black stuff, other places where we dug trenches last year is the nasty orange clay type that is really sticky and hard to wash out of stuff. The past few days we've been getting vehicles stuck in the mud which is always fun especially when you need to get somewhere and don't have someone to help you get unstuck. We'd love to improve the drainage quality of our dirt so it can be something other than mud February- June and maybe even, you know, grow something. Would dumping wheelbarrow loads of leaf litter/twigs from the woods into the worst problem spots help with the mud issue? What are other creative ideas for dealing with mud?

Have you thought about getting a load of road base and some rock?

How long is the driveway?

This thread is someone dealing with the same problem and how they solved the problem:

https://permies.com/t/165409/Puddle-dirt-lane-move-side

I'm familiar with this problem! A friend who should have known better, tried to turn his truck off the edge of the "road" and slid into a damp area, tried to get out on his own, eventually asked Hubby to pull him out withthe tractor, and left huge ruts that were filled with water all winter. Sigh... I'm the one that eventually got fed up and moved 15 garbage cans of chipped and shredded wood chips into the ruts. At least the wood chips suck up some of that water!

To me it sounds like you have 3 problems - 1) "path areas" regular applications of wood chips/saw dust will help to at least cover the clay so you aren't sticking to it. I did that where we cross the winter creek and head up the hill to where our portable chicken shelters spend the winter. Every 1-2 years I dumped at least 20 cans of mulch on a 2 ft wide path up that slope, and finally about 10 years later, it is no longer a soggy bog in winter.
2) "garden areas" - Part of my issue with clay, is that the layers of it soak up the water very slowly because the clay acts like hard-pan. In the areas I've tried this, it seems to be helping. I dig as deep a hole as I can - in my soil we're looking at 18" to 30" because it's really hard to dig. I fill that hole with layers of any compostable things I can, and keep tossing more in as I go. Duck bedding, veggie scraps from a friend's restaurant, buckets of rain-water, dead chickens (wrapped in feed sacks with sawdust under them - lots of "browns" to soak up anything that might contaminate groundwater), worms I happen to come across, etc.  I've tried the deep rooted plants like daikon radish, but serious clay has so far defeated the ones I have - there are some specially bred ones I haven't tried. I mix the clay I dug out of the hole back in gradually. I'm not sure how far the effect has spread, but one which is near a tree I planted seems to have helped that tree survive with minimal care. This is not a fast fix.
3) driving areas: rocks, more rocks, more rocks added over time. If you still don't see progress, I've read of people putting old chain link fencing flat on the ground, then putting rocks on top of that, and smaller rocks on top of the bigger rocks. I'd also try to put up serious marking sticks so people *know* where it's safe to drive and where it isn't. I'd also look at drainage in the road areas so the water goes where it's useful, rather than wrecking the road. We've got one driveway installed by a former owner which has no culvert under it. Up-slope is shrubby brush and large trees and I have *no* idea where that water's going. I'm hoping it has some sort of natural underground stream bed it's following, but in my mind, I wonder if one day will wake up to find a huge sink-hole with all the trees caved into it???