By Jo Ann Bullard
Good morning. Welcome to Jo Ann’s Virtual Café 2024. Come on in and help yourself to a breakfast beverage. Let’s talk.
Well, it is finally here. It’s the first day of Spring. Spring has always been a welcome season. The preachers around here think it’s a time of new beginnings and part of life’s renewal. I don’t know about them. I just love this season where the flowers bloom and everything seems to come to life after a dark, dull winter.
You can measure how warm and good the Spring season is going to be just by watching Spring wandering up a mountain. At the first signs of Spring, the green leaves and flowers start budding at the base of the mountains. Slowly the green starts its yearly hike up the mountains. Finally, the green color reaches the top.
That’s not the only thing that starts at the bottom and goes to the top in Spring. Years ago, some mountain folk would make a little maple syrup in the early spring. You see, the sap of maple trees starts working its way up the tree in late winter and early spring. That’s when some folks would tap a tree and make a little maple syrup. This was started in the mountains by the Cherokee Indians long ago.
Spring is also the time of planting everything from potatoes, corn, vegetables to tobacco. When I was little, I knew it was spring when Grandpa would start his tobacco hot bed. Grandpa would find a good spot for it on a hill slightly sloping to the east to catch the good warm sunshine. Then he would put small branches of dry wood in a rectangle and burn it. He said this would kill the weeds in the soil.
Now, my Grandpa would sow some tobacco seeds after tilling the soil. Grandpa would put thin white sheets over it to protect plants from late frosts. So, when I saw the burning and white sheets, I knew spring had arrived. In my day, grandpa’s tobacco crop could mean a good Christmas or poor one. It was one of grandpa’s few cash crops.
Spring in Appalachia is a time of change. They say to watch out for bears. They come out hungry after sleeping all winter. So don’t leave any food or trash around. You start hearing more and more songbirds in the early morning. Singing happily as the sun rises in the early morning light. We watch robins and other birds in the yards looking for insects and worms after a soft Spring shower. They start building their nests for a new generation of birds to come.
The Spring flowers start blooming like the daffodils. Then when we see the Dogwood trees blooming with their white flowers, we know that Easter is near. There’s the smell of the earth being tilled for gardens or flower beds.
Finally, we hear the lawn mowers cutting glass. People planting flowers. Yes, Spring is a time of the awakening of a new season that brings joy and hope. Another cycle of life begins and is renewed.
I still love watching Spring slowly climbing up the mountains as it renews the mountains and brings them to life.
Some people think that the rising of the green trees and plants are like earth’s thermometer as the warm temperatures moves the thermometer higher each day.
I guess you can see Spring in the faces of people. There are more smiles and more expectations for the season to renew our fellowship with each other and nature.
Having said that, let’s share a breakfast beverage and a Native American Proverb. The Proverb of today goes like this:
“When the Spring rains comes, the green grass will follow. Life will begin again as Mother Earth makes another circle of the Grandfather Sun for another year of new beginnings.”
Thanks for coming. Enjoy your gift of today. Have a great day! We look forward to seeing you next time!
