I think most of us always look forward to springtime. The temperatures are warmer so we can get outside more. The flowers start to bloom and soon the trees will start to “green up” with an abundance of new foliage.

There is something about hearing the first frogs croak as they start to venture out of hibernation. The coarse noise reverberates in our hills and hollows and is a welcome sound when it comes back each spring.

I also love seeing the robins in the grass pecking away for another juicy worm. Other bird species start to fly back from their treks south for the winter.

The days get longer and it is nice to have more daylight hours to do things around the house. Daylight saving time gives us even longer days. (I wish they would leave it the same and not change back in the fall.)

Growing up we had forsythia bushes in our yard. Those beautiful yellow blooms are the first to come out, along with the daffodils that poke out of the soil earlier than other flowers. So I made sure when I got my own house that I had forsythia bushes in my yard. They have been blooming brightly and it just warms my heart to see them.

Soon the dandelions will pop up in the green grass and the honey bees will start to come out and pollinate them with the other blooms.

If you are a farmer, you may till up your soil for your garden and get it ready to plant some vegetables for a summer harvest of fresh tomatoes, half-runner green beans, corn or whatever you may grow.

This year it seems as though we’ve had an early spring. Having temperatures in the 70s in February is really nice.

If you like to fish, then you welcome the warm weather and a chance to cast your line in the nearest streams and lakes and try your hand at catching the big one.

I love baseball, so springtime means the start of the national pastime. At the same time we get March Madness, the college basketball tournament, which is one of the best sports events of the year. Needless to say, I will be watching a lot of hoops on TV, and I will also start watching my beloved Cincinnati Reds when they start to play.

Of course, this is Appalachia and we sometimes get a late snowfall. I hope not, but some of the biggest snow accumulations I can recall have happened in March and even April.

Then we have our springtime “winters.” Dogwood winter, blackberry winter and the others. There is no doubt the old-timers knew what they were talking about. So we will still get some cooler days and even cold nights and maybe even a little snow.

We are not completely out of winter. After all, the first official day of spring is March 21. We will likely get some cooler weather, but if you’re like me, I’m crossing my fingers that it stays warm.

A negative for many of us is springtime allergies. The pollen and blooms can play havoc on our sinuses and eyes. But I guess we’ll have to take the bad with the good.

I would rather cut grass in warmer weather than shovel snow in the cold.

The extra sunshine also makes us feel better. It’s a proven fact that gray, cloudy and gloomy days can affect our well-being. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a real diagnosis. Most cases of SAD begin during late fall or early winter and go away during spring or summer with warmer temperatures and brighter sunshine.

Of course, something we are used to here in the Tug Valley is that sometimes we get heavy rainfall in the spring. That has led to flooding in the past and is something we always have to be watching for. We start to get those thunderstorms, too, because of the warmer and cooler weather colliding. I always liked thunderstorms, even though our dog Petey does not like them.

But we’ll take the few negatives for the blue skies, sunshine, warmer and brighter days ahead.

Enjoy the early springtime weather and warmer temperatures. It is a blessing for us all.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)