green up, green-up time noun Springtime.
1976 Dwyer Southern Sayin’s 23 = springtime. “It’s comin’ green up.” 1991 Haynes Haywood Home 56 Springtime, just at green-up time, was the time for making popguns and willow whistles….It’s the time when buds come on the willows and elders along the branches and creeks and their bark gets loose.
—Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English
Every spring of the year I enjoy watching green up happen. From the first tinge of green on the mountains till the trees are all wearing spanking new garments I love it all.
In the beginning there are various colors of green everywhere you look. My favorite is the pale green. It seem so fresh and so fragile too. As summer progresses all the green turns to looking the same—almost like the deep dark green from a jungle book.
On my way home the other night the views were so breathtaking I could barely keep my eyes on the highway.
There were dark billowing clouds left over from our recent rain and the hour was the golden light of evening. The mountains, trees, bushes, and grass along the road all stood out in stark contrast to the dark clouds and the clear as a bell light. I thought of trying to grab my phone and capture it, but instead decided to just revel in the beauty and admire the Lord’s creation.
Blackberry winter arrived over the weekend and it’s still hanging around with temperatures in the low 40s of a morning. I wore a coat all day yesterday while we were out working on the shed.
Well truthfully I wasn’t working one bit. I was marveling at the beauty of the blue sky filled with white clouds framed by the early green of spring.
Tipper
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
Our skies rarely look like that anymore. So very beautiful!
Such a beautiful picture Tipper I would like you to know you encourage me to started YouTube channel You would talked about how to started one on YouTube channel So I started one about a month ago I would like you to pray about it and check it out It called The Adventures of Sassybelle it about birds and squirrels with relaxing music very family friendly
sorry I did mean for post to show two times
Rick, my aunt and uncle lived off of East Brainderd Road at Chattanooga. He owned his own Toledo Scale Company and would service the scales in the manufacturing (carpet) companies in the area of Ringgold, Dalton and other area places. This would have been from the 60’s on into the 80’s. My aunt was born and raised within site of the Incline Railway bottom parking lot.
As I’m typing this, we are under a tornado warning.
For those who don’t live where they are fairly common, the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning is that a watch means conditions are right for breeding a twister while a warning means that one has been spotted on the ground and might head your way.
We wait to hear the sirens then dive into our ‘safe’ room with a mattress on top of us. I’ve only done that once in the 30+ years I’ve lived here.
Praying for you and your family!
Robert-I pray you and your family are safe.
Greening up is beautiful, to me it’s God giving us another opportunity to produce our food. Here in flat country it’s been highs in the low 80’s and lows in the mid fifties.
Such a beautiful picture Springtime my favorite time of the year Tipper I would like you to know that you encourage me to started a YouTube channel I have had about 1 month I was watching your channel celebrating Appalachian I would like you to pray for it and to check it out it’s about feeding birds and squirrels with relaxing music The adventures of Sassybelle
Love the picture of the beautiful sky God has blessed us with. It looks like you may have taken it from the new shed build site. That shed once it’s finished, will be a blessing for your family. Enjoy everyday for “This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
Hi Tipper, we moved to Ohio in ’81. it’s always magical to travel back home in spring. it’s like time traveling. we leave here with maybe a few flowers blooming but get to south Ky see a big difference but by time we get to Murphy spring up in full glory! when we 1st moved it was so much colder here but time has changed weather to point not much different than Murphy. God Bless and enjoy his gift of spring up
Soon after green-up, we boys began to ask mother if we could go barefooted. When she could say “no, not yet” no longer, we’d shuck our shoes and run across the yard or up the road as fast as we could. Sure, we got bee-stung in the clover and stone bruises and stubbed toes, but it was worth all that to be free to welcome summer shoeless. Of course, it took some time for our feet to toughen up. Small cuts and puncture wounds usually got “painted” with mercurochrome and sometimes kerosene–“coal oil”. I would run from any authority figure brandishing a bottle of iodine.
Gene, I also liked to run barefooted just as soon as the weather warmed up. For the cuts and bruises and nails in foot, or sprains it was mercurochrome, kerosene rag or soak in epsom salt. We never used iodine, metholate, was as close as we came to it. Recently one of my church’s stuck nails in his foot, when I asked him about it he said “ I put a kerosene soaked rag around it and went on about my business.” If these three things were as dangerous as is now claimed, there wouldn’t be any of us older generations alive. My father in law said owner and boss at the machine shop he worked for kept a bottle of red oil for them to pour on anything less than an amputation.
A beautiful picture, Tipper. A real distraction from work for sure! One of my favorite things growing up was to find a few moments to sneak away from chores and lay back in the grass, hands behind my head and marvel at the blueness of the sky and the ever changing forms of the clouds as they drifted by. And on many clear, moonlit summer nights I would grab an old quilt and do the same, only now I’d be marveling at the vast numbers of stars that felt so close I could touch them if I reached up, and the beauty of the moon – so clear, so bright – just being in awe of God’s beautiful creation.
Along with the greening all the little animals are raising their spring babies. It’s a tough beginning of life for alot of them. My cat caught a baby flying squirrel one night last week…luckily I was able to get it away from her uninjured and now I’m raising the baby, feeding it every 4 hrs around the clock. It’s doing well so far. Likes to climb up into my shirt sleeve and snuggle.
The very next day after the squirrel arrived, my daddy was doing some work on a bank with the backhoe and accidentally dug up a nest of baby bunnies. 3 of the 4 didn’t survive the incident but daddy got the lone survivor and called me to come get it. I tried my best to care for the poor little guy but he passed away after a few days. I read that it’s very hard to get wild bunnies to survive but I still feel so bad. I tried to contact a wildlife rehabber to take him to but got no response. I’m sure they have their hands full this time of year. Springtime is a beautiful time of the year, everything gets a fresh start
Spring is my favorite time of the year when everything comes alive! ‘Green up’ has been a little slower for us in central Alberta as it’s so dry, we desperately need rain. I love the videos of you and Matt getting your garden in. The general rule of thumb here for planting is after May long weekend, that, I’m really look forward too!
Here in Northwest Georgia (Ringgold) our weather is a lot like yours. I have planted my garden early than I ever have. I’m hoping that it will grow and I can harvest most everything before the hot dry summer arrives. But I’m enjoying the greening up this year as well. I enjoyed your pictures and I noticed you and Matt started your garden a little earlier as well. Have a blessed week Tipper.
I’m like you Tipper in that I’m so anticipating the spring green up and looking for every smidge of beauty I see in early spring:) God has created such beauty all around us if we just open our eyes. Here in SC PA it started greening up in April and my Cherokee Pink Dogwood has already bloomed.
My Mother was a Haynes that was raised in E TN and her Daddy was raised in Waterloo, AL. Whenever you mention words from that Haynes Haywood Home, I always wonder if that might have been one of my ancestors:)
I also enjoyed hearing Granny and Paul sing “How Great Thou Art.” It was a favorite of my Mother and is one of mine too! And I love Granny’s purple sweater. She is so talented. God bless and have a great week!
I love all of our seasons here in Appalachia, but Fall and Spring are definitely very contrasting favorites! The varying colors of all of the blooms, the pale to medium greens of the foliage often paired against ferocious rain and storm clouds or the brightest blue skies, and that hint of warmth in the air just gives promise to fun days and good times ahead! And in the fall, the changing colors of the leaves–showing their reds, yellows, rusts, and bright oranges against the blue skies and typically still a lot of green grass…add to that the colors of fall blooms like yellow, orange, red, and rust mums and leftover sunflowers mixed with the browns/tans of wilting crops and the hay fields begging for one last harvest! Fall is definitely my favorite, but Springtime deserves its own special place, too! Winter is gray, but I love it for its own reasons (mainly snow and the holidays). Summer is fun with the festivities of July 4th, cookouts, swimming, and especially gardening; however, I’m like the Deer Hunter and could do without so much of the heat or at least the humidity. But those two cooler seasons always take my breath and hold my heart closest for their beauty!
After reading all the comments this morning I am reminded of the old Louis Armstrong song What a Beautiful World. Like God said when He created it, “it is very good”.
Well? I don’t know what I was thinking, but the Louis Armstrong song is titled What a Wonderful World. That corrected, it’s certainly beautiful too.
This has been a beautiful spring so far. There is no green like the green of early spring.
We need some of those skies! It’s been gray and rainy here for a couple of weeks! But I know come mid July we’ll be wishing for rain so I’m getting in the last bits of cozy hot coffee under blankets time before it’s way too hot.
Springtime must be glorious there in the mountains. Everything coming back to life after a long winter’s sleep.
Nature, that is to say the creation, is an unending feast for the eyes. At green up here I was asking, “How many colors of green are there?” Add to that what you describe of clouds, mountains and golden evening light and it is a Masterwork. And He does those every day. The bible even speaks of “clear shining after rain”. His judgment of His own work was that is was “very good”. I think He must surely be pleased when we feel the same. I don’t know if you or I are grateful because we notice or notice because we are grateful. But I think maybe it is a circle of both.
I see gray skies and bluebirds here this morning!
Your sky photograph is beautiful. We have had lots of sun and rain these past couple of weeks, and the sky has been just filled with gorgeous clouds of every shape and size against a stark blue background. Our yard is plush and green and the leaves are finally coming out on our oak trees. They are always the last to leaf out in the spring and the last to lose their leaves in the fall. It has been in the 40’s in the mornings here too—cool and refreshing. The down side is everything is covered with green pollen. I have to wipe down the furniture and floors on my front porch every couple days so we can sit out there and not get covered in the green dust. That’s the price we pay for living surrounded by trees. It’s well worth it when these giants provide us with refreshing shade all summer long. So I am heading out to mop my porch this morning, and then enjoy it for the rest of the day. Have a wonderful day everyone.
It has been in the upper 40’s here the last two mornings and about the lower 70’s for the highs. This is my kind of weather, it is neither too cold or hot to be doing things outside. Although we have been getting some rain, it seems this spring has been drier than the last few years. I am going to enjoy it while I can, if the last several years are any indication, it will soon be hot with high humidity, and very dry starting in June.