FIELD NOTES: The Green Bang

You could make the case that fall is the most aptly named season, what with leaves and temperatures both falling, but from where I sit, calling the season we are now in “spring” is just as appropriate. One day things are brown and gray, and then, BOOM, everything springs into shades of green – the Green Bang. Of course, that green is accompanied by an eighth-inch thick layer of yellow pollen on everything, but that’s life in the Carolinas.

The first time I ever visited Charlotte was around this time of year, late April or early May, and I was amazed at how green everything was. In Ohio, things green up more gradually, starting in late April and continuing throughout May.

For those who love the outdoors, spring in the Carolinas is a beautiful – and frustrating – time of year; frustration born from the realization that the wonder of the season carries with it multiple responsibilities and that those responsibilities are time-sensitive.

Over the next few weeks, homeowners will need to apply weed control and fertilizer to their lawns, trim back shrubs, clean and prep annual flower beds, apply fertilizer to perennial flower beds, tune up mowers and string trimmers, and apply mulch and pine straw in all the appropriate places. And that doesn’t include any of the regular gardening, home and lawn maintenance tasks. (Or, in my case, the fact that the deck needs to be stained.) Nor does it help that spring lawn and garden maintenance season coincides precisely with some of the best fishing of the year. After basically sitting on our collective butts for the winter, we are now faced with the dilemma of having everything we need and want to do needing to be done, all at once.

Over the years, I have learned to compartmentalize and perform a sort of triage; carefully prioritizing and managing homestead tasks while blocking out enough time on the water to satisfy my inner angler. It’s a delicate balance. First come the extremely time-sensitive tasks – if I don’t get the fertilizer and weed control down RIGHT NOW, it’s not going to do any good. Then come the somewhat more flexible tasks – the liriope needs to be cut back before it starts its spring growth cycle, but can be fudged by a week or two without any lasting damage – followed by the “it would be nice to have this done by Memorial Day” tasks.

Meanwhile, for maximum impact, I plan my mountain fishing trips to coincide with the April and May stocking dates of those Delayed Harvest waters, and fill in Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons with kayak fishing trips on my local lakes, Norman and Mountain Island.

In theory, it will all work out … we’ll see about reality.