North Carolina Seasons

One of my favorite things about living here in North Carolina is the weather. A colleague was telling me lately that it was difficult to get used to the seasons here, since they didn’t seem to obey the same rules as in other places, namely up North. A few days ago, the temperature struggled to get out of the sixties. The next day, it was warm and toasty outside, nearing the mid-eighties.
To be sure, spring has sprung in our neck of the woods. For the most part all the flowers have bloomed and the leaves are darkening to a rich deep green. The smell of freshly cut grass is all around. I have to admit that the weather has been exquisite, even for a North Carolina Spring.
Typically, over the last few years we have had more pronounced heat-ups come the Spring months. Certainly, over the past few years we’ve had some strangely potent winters, so the contrast seemed more pronounced.
This past winter however, was calm and unproductive. We had one snow late in the season, and it didn’t last much more than a few days.
Those of us who pull for snow and wintry weather kept warning others threateningly “We will still see a good cold snap”. I hoped, anyway.
Soon enough it was time to get working on the garden and so, we planted our green treasures in the reddish compost infused earth. To our continuing surprise and delight, we had vegetables sprouting in just a few short weeks.
Of course, we were probably premature. A few wintry blasts of frosty weather came on after we were through planting, and so we were required to prepare for the onset of frost as we crossed our fingers and hoped that our precious garden would go unscathed.
Read Micki’s article on our preparation here: http://arkansasnews.com/2012/04/14/no-jack-your-not-welcome-to-visit-in-april/
Now, it seems fairly clear, as we enter into May that we have seen the end of extreme chilly weather, and we will continue to heat up to the intense Southern Summer we have all got to get used to, if we do not exactly prefer it.
Summer is coming. This last weekend, I found myself sweating just trimming around some trees and corners with a little garden scissors. Beads of perspiration glistened on my forehead as I brought in this week’s groceries. A tinge of burning on my neck and face prompted me to put on my straw hat, while I weeded in the garden.
I have no problem with summer. It’s beautiful here during that season. But soon, unavoidably, we will be doused with thick humid days and breezeless nights. A storm everyday around 3 O’clock will just make everything that much hotter and stickier. Sidewalks and driveways will burn right through thin summer footwear and a haze will hang over everything.
As we enter July, the days will be so long that the instant we wake up, the heat will be noticeable. The house utility bills will note the sharp increase in electric and water, as we try to keep the inside of the house cool enough for comfort, and the plants outside (including the grass) moist and green.
We will no doubt see several weeks with no rain and this has been a common occurrence over the last decade. We will be discouraged from excess water usage as we have in the past years, and finally, when we have had as much of the burn and bake of summer as we can stand, It will get really hot.
Nighttime temps will not drop out of the eighties. Daytime temps will bottom out at the one-hundred mark. Vast droves of vacationers will perform their exodus from sun-blistered suburbia to the baking sands of our coasts. Public swimming pools will be so filled with bathers that an individual with good balance could walk from one side of the pool to the other on the heads and shoulders of swimmers, just like Michael J. “Crocodile” Dundee in the New York Subway.
Sometime in mid-September, though, we will begin to feel a change.
I’ve tried very hard to locate the exact time that it happens every year, and although it mostly never meets up with the calendar beginning of Autumn, it does happen within a four-week envelope of time.
One afternoon, the sun will be low in the sky, and the shadows will seem longer. The bright pristine-white blaze of the summer sun will give over to a golden glow. Twilight will last just a whisper longer, and the evening air will fill and thrill to the sounds of crickets chorusing.
The tiny spiders who have made the front door home, will be huge and fat with flies and mosquitoes.
Noticeably cooler evenings and nights, with temps plummeting back into the low sixties will make sitting out late on the patio or porch a supreme delight.
A few storms will come back then, and the rain gauges will fill, either with the tempest brought on by cold fronts coming across the land, or from the rain bands from a tropical storm that wandered too close to the coasts.
Soon, in that golden light, you’ll notice a tinge of color in the trees, the sky will return to its crystal blue color, and the afternoon will deliver twilight sooner and sooner, until the night sky is blanketing us with the star woven darkness. Leaves will fall, gardens will give up their last harvest, and children will go to school with a coat and a hat and a scarf.
Winter will almost imperceptibly lay her icy hand on the land, and we will once again be laden with cold and the silvery light of the short days, and the holiday cheer and cozy fires of the long nights.
Oddly, I find myself nostalgic for those cool temperatures now, as we warm up to delve wholeheartedly into Summer’s heat. I will deal with the heat, stay inside during the burning parts of the day, and endeavor to keep our plants watered. Just like every other year, time will slide by quickly, and it will be Christmas again before I get my bearings. I don’t want to rush those months by too fast.
Certainly the North Carolina Seasons will help to distract me from the speed at which time flies, with their beauty and gorgeous displays. And maybe, just maybe we will have a mild Summer too? Well, I can hope can’t I?