by Robert Graef

Gardening will be in full swing come April and May but those months also make up an attractive shoulder-season for adult travelers. Kids will still be in school and weather is almost reliably good. At the same time airlines and hotels offer attractive deals to anyone who can break loose, my flower beds and tiny vegetable plot need attention.

March always seems to be the time of year for wrestling with that issue. Doing something about it will wait until spring arrives. My signal will be a first magical day when we throw open doors and windows to let blossom-scented breezes wash winter staleness from closets, curtains and carpets. The lovely air entices us into feeling that we’re out from under. Out from under winter’s gray chill. Out from under interminable sports play-offs.

How easy it is to forget that our fractious climate likes to hold a last dose of winter to dump on us in mid-April. Heedless, we dress down to shorts and T-shirts and catch a chill. It happened last year and it’ll happen again next year. Just like Charlie Brown and the football. Or as Henry Van Dyke quipped, “The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.”

If you need proof that we are past the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere you should have been standing on the equator on March 20th. At noon you would have cast no shadow because the sun was directly overhead on its way toward the Tropic of Cancer. That night was the same length for both northern and southern hemispheres. That defining date is the Vernal Equinox, equinox meaning equal nights in Latin. It is this phenomenon that marks the official beginning of spring.

When April flashes its all-over green, the whole world thinks, go! Moles erupt across my lawn. Migrating thrushes harvest every last berry from my Pyrocantha. First warm days suck freshets of winter water from hillside pastures. Snow-covered highland bogs show depressions where the subtle energy of awakening skunk cabbages speeds melting. With all these signals, why was it that primitive societies needed high-priests’ permission before leaping into the season’s activities?

I have great respect for people who measure their lives by natural cycles of planting, nurturing and harvesting. People who live by natural rhythms seem to live full lives without running around the globe. They take joy from what they do. Stay-at-home gardeners are probably better at tending friendships and of course they become more knowledgeable about making things grow. They expend their energy, time and resources locally and have ample stocks of home-grown food to show for their efforts. No doubt they are about 80 percent content with their choice of staying home to tend their gardens.

People who can’t control their itchy feet (I am one of those) are forever dashing off to far places to find out how others manage their lives. Rubbing up against other cultures and economies helps to put local issues into perspective. Not just local, but state and national issues, too. Travel is so stimulating that it leaves me about 80 percent content with my choice of forgoing gardening.

Anyone claiming 100 percent contentment with some consuming personal choice is not being entirely honest. The flip-side of one-dimensional contentment is no desire to do otherwise. Most people aren’t wired to be so one-dimensional. Nearly everyone has secondary aspects to their lives — or at least dreams of them, be they volunteering, fishing, bird-watching, quilting, or stamp-collecting. Mine isn’t gardening but I find it easy to talk about travel with gardeners because so many of them are arm-chair travelers. Who know, the contact might even whet my interest for gardening. Maybe.

Some 80 percent-content gardeners love to watch Rick Steves’ travel programs on TV. Or they might pick up a National Geographic and dream of traveling to Africa’s Serengeti. Meanwhile, this 80 percent-content traveler can’t even figure out which of the new tomato hybrids are best for Marysville’s climate. I may not even plant tomatoes in the tubs by the garage this year. If I do I might not be around to water them. Last year’s tomato plants put out blooms but practically no fruit. A real gardener could tell me what I should have done about it but what would that matter if I’m traveling?

It’s hard for me to let a shoulder-season go by without going somewhere. Packing is easy. A sweater and water resistant jacket suffice. No need to haul an extra bag loaded with bulky winter-woolies, long-Johns and heavy socks. Hosts are still gracious in May when villages aren’t yet swamped by tourists. By July, hordes of travelers, like armies of conquistadors, plant their flags in tourist destinations, the true character of the places returning only after the flood-tide of tourism ebbs in the fall. High season invaders are made to pay dearly. The same Italian room that costs $70 per night in May will fetch $110 in July. All in all, the shoulder-season offers more than enough travel advantages to let my tomatoes go un-watered. But no overseas travel this time, Given the economic situation I think we’ll forego Europe and hit the road in the U.S. of A.

What to plant? If time allows I’ll do the tomato thing again. Where to go? Utah’s Grand Escalante and Canyon Lands sound good.

Comments may be addressed to: rgraef@verizon.net.