Spring Has Sprung

Maybe a day earlier than many remember, but at 3/20 just after 11 PM, the Spring Equinox is upon us! All that really means is that the days are now longer than the nights, and for many of us that is a welcoming sight.

This is officially my 68^th spring, and I think that it took me the first 65 of them to realize what spring is and is not. Spring in the northeast is not the return of warm weather, or green grass or leaves on the trees for that matter. Spring in Florida, however, beams of all the stereotypical visions we have of the season… baseball, mowing lawns, trees with their new blooms and beach weather.

In my high school days, notions of spring began on March 1, as that was always opening day of baseball practice. Although the first few weeks of practice typically saw us practicing in the gym, hitting tennis balls from a pitching machine and running the hallways to get in game shape. Every now and then we found a day worthy of outdoor practice, full of 30 MPH winds to refine our skills at catching mile high pop ups and fielding ground balls in the squishy, mud-like playing surface. It was a major league style practice which readied us to play in the wind driven days of April and May. And with a head coach who was a top major league prospect in his day, we did not disappoint and always had a championship caliber team at Eastchester HS.

Now, I get my thrills at seeing the tulips, daffodils and hyacinths decorate our yard. But these thrills now arrive via photographs from my kids as I am in FL until the end of May. But in the absence of the daily live viewing of flowers growing out of the ground on a 35 degree morning, I get to see (and eat) my mature herb plants, host clients and friends for a round of golf and eat outdoors without a jacket! Even the beach is fantastic with the ocean temperatures hovering in the low 70’s.

For Floridians, the water temperature in the 70’s is simply too cold for them. For me, it is about as good as it gets in the Boston area, so I float around as if it were a bathtub. In the summer, however, you may have heard that the water temperature regularly reaches 90 degrees in SW FL, and to me that is simply not refreshing enough.

So, by the time I head back in late May, I’ll be craving golf in the 70 degree weather and a refreshing (if not too cold) dip in the ocean. Hopefully there will be a few bulb flowers still lingering, but if not it is time for my perennial garden to pop and the Northeast herbs to go into the ground.