The other day as I was sitting inside with cats on my lap, I heard the sound of a miniature helicopter go whooshing by the window behind my head. While it was the first time I had heard it this year, the sound was unmistakable. I knew the hummingbirds were back. 

I wasn’t surprised though, as the plants I like to call hummingbird calendars had already announced that their return was imminent.

As the weather gets nicer and spring slowly transitions to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, a bevy of longtime and beloved festivals start to pop up in the picturesque mountain communities here in Western North Carolina. 

These annual gatherings are a way to bring all of us together after an extended period of hunkering down during the winter months. Filled with locals and visitors alike, all those present partake in numerous activities and avenues to support those in your town.

As the spring mowing season commences, Franklin is reminding citizens that there is an ordinance prohibiting yard debris and grass clippings on streets and sidewalks.

When yard debris and grass clippings are left on sidewalks or blown into streets, there is potential for materials to get into the stormwater drains blocking them and causing water sheet flows to be rerouted and result in run off and flooding issues.

I love walking in the woods in springtime. Flowers begin to line the trail in late February, and by the first of April, only a fool would fail to notice the abundance and diversity of flowers surrounding them as they saunter through the forest. The first spring wildflowers are all small, blooming just above the ground. 

This helps these early flowers survive the ups and downs, highs and lows, freezes and thaws that define springtime.

For the past dozen years here up Moses Creek, October has brought not only cool temperatures and colorful leaves but swarms of drone-like brown marmorated stinkbugs that try to get inside our house for the winter. I wrote about these invasive pests in the Nov. 8, 2023, issue of the Smoky Mountain News, and how Becky and I turned their unwelcome arrival into a kind of enjoyable hunting season, making lemonade out of lemons, with no limit on how many bugs we could bag. 

The North Carolina Arboretum invites everyone to join in the reawakening of a new season with Spring Into the Arb. Now in its second year, this series of plant shows and sales, science and nature activities and music and art is a wonderful way to reemerge and reconnect with nature. 

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m getting excited for the return of wildflowers.  

In Southern Appalachia, we’ve had a real winter this season with long, extended cold snaps and a couple of good, region-wide snow and ice storms. Now we’re looking at a few weeks of warmer weather ahead, and in mid-February that means the emergence and bloom of the first of the spring wildflowers. 

Thunderstorms were crossing the mountains in waves one morning in the spring, and while trying to get in my morning hike up the ridge after one passed, I got caught in the next. I knew the danger. Lightning strikes around 300 people a year in the United States, injuring most, killing one out of 10.

The N.C. Department of Transportation’s Spring Litter Sweep kicked off April 12 and runs through April 26. This biannual cleanup event invites residents across the state to bag litter and beautify roadsides, all while helping protect North Carolina’s natural charm. 

Kind Hearts, this hurricane has made me think about water, and I can say with certainty that water once had a role in my grandparents’ life that was near to a religion. Several years ago, a friend sent me a warning that confused me. “An organization named Nestlé is coming for your water.” What the hell? I struggled to understand how anyone could steal my water.