It is getting to be that time of year when anyone who was born south of Interstate 64 starts thinking about spring. I grew up in the area of North Carolina between Winston-Salem and the Virginia border. Spring comes early there.
Actually my mother's family has been in North Carolina since just after the revolutionary war. My dad was late comer, he got to Mount Airy around 1900. My wife's family has been in the same area of Surry County for over two hundred years. That is a lot of years of eagerly anticipating a Carolina spring.
My wife and I lived in Canada for a number of years until moving back to the US in 1987. We made it back to Southwest Virginia in 1989.
When my wife's father was alive, we would always get a call sometime before the end of February that his Surry County, NC onions were in the ground. Usually we would also hear from my relatives in Yadkin County, NC that all sorts of things were in the ground and growing by the end of February.
Living on a mountain overlooking Roanoke was much like living in a banana belt compared to living in Canada, but our Piedmont based North Carolina friends always seemed to have a couple of weeks on us when we spent most of our time in Roanoke.
Now that we spend the majority of our time along the NC coast we have a climate edge in vegetables and strawberries. Three years ago I was over in Beaufort, NC on February 25 and took a picture of some seriously green spring grass.
Each year I enjoy calling all my relatives and bragging about ripe strawberries sometime from late March to mid-April. It is almost as much fun as the first ripe tomato of the year phone call.
If you know much about coastal North Carolina, you might know that most of our yards don't get green early. The grass (almost weed) that we grow is called centipede. It rarely gets green before the middle of April so in order to get that green grass picture in Beaufort, I had to find some wild grass.
From years of experience in Roanoke, I know that our mostly bluegrass yard gets green sometime between the third week of March and the end of March. That first mowing of the yard in Roanoke is beginning of a heroic battle to stay ahead of the fast growing mountain grass which often requires mowing a couple times a week for the first part of the season.
One of the nice things about our coastal grass is that even when it greens up, it doesn't grow very fast. There are only six to eight weeks out of the year when it has to be mowed every week. Lots of people mow it each week, but it takes a trained eye to notice.
Last year my Yadkin County based relatives had some difficulty with their early plantings. Since I live on the coast, I usually drive them crazy because I can plant my tomato plants in late March, and I usually have a ripe tomato early the first week in June.
It is hard to say what will happen this year. It has been a cold year, but I did find some signs of green on my afternoon walk. It was some wild grass on a southern exposure near the White Oak River. The greening grass along with several robins and some bluebirds have given me some hope that this tough winter may finally be winding down.
Our temperatures are headed for the mid-sixtes next week. While that is not nearly as impressive as the 100 degree temperature shift that my friend Ron might see in Bartlesville, Oklahoma according to Kevin Myatt's Weather Blog, I am glad that I did not see the minus 28F required to get that huge differential.
I have seen minus 28F, and I am not anxious to revisit the experience. In fact I would pretty happy to not even have another minor snowstorm like the one we had here on the coast this winter.
I have had it even with cold rain, and I am ready for spring. I am grabbing each warm day and enjoying it. I even took the boat down the river for a ride on Sunday February 6.
All the spots which show early signs of spring are burned to my subconscious. I know where to look for the first daffodils both in the Roanoke Valley and on the coast of North Carolina. I just hope the March blizzards and snowstorms stay away from Roanoke. We don't need to make any more history this year, and hopefully Roanoke can make up its rain deficit a little easier than getting whacked with a blizzard.
The colors of spring will not take much longer. Likely within five weeks, we will be rewarded with some signs of spring both in Roanoke and along the coast. Mother Nature will not be denied.
Anyone from the North who needs a dose of real spring should go ahead and plan a late March trip down the Shenandoah Valley. I still have memories of coming down the valley after spring semesters in Cambridge. It was always a treat to watch spring unfold as the miles passed.
Still we have to wait just a little while longer and until something more spring-like can be found, I will sustain myself with our patch of pansies which seem to have thrived in spite of the coldest winter in 100 years here on the North Carolina Coast.
This week digging through the history of Apple kept me busy during the days which were too cold or wet for afternoon walks. Those cold days aren't in the forecast for next week, and that is fine with me.
I am planning a beach walk or two.
