When you live in a county as beautiful as Shenandoah, there is no shortage of beautiful scenery or secret spots to visit.

Shenandoah is a large, long county that is bordered on the west by Great North Mountain and on the east by the Massanutten mountains. In between is our part of the fertile Shenandoah Valley - once known as the breadbasket of the Confederacy.

Take Route 600 over the mountain and you almost feel like you have entered another world. The community of Zepp has a beautiful stillness that our city friends can only imagine. When the sun goes down in Zepp, it is country dark. Cedar Creek dazzles the eye and the lush forest pristine and lovely.

Slip over the ridge on the other side of the county and you land in Fort Valley, so named because of the fortress-like nature of the mountainous community. “The Fort,” as everyone calls it around here, is 23 miles long and three miles wide at its widest point.

Like Zepp, the Fort is quite isolated and has that same sort of other-worldly feel to it. It is largely agricultural, so scenic beauty includes rolling fields, cattle, horses and the seasonal checkerboard of hay bales.

Camp Roosevelt, which was the nation’s first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, is commemorated in the George Washington National Forest in Fort Valley. The GW Forest covers much of Fort Valley and the Elizabeth Furnace recreational area is close to the CCC camp area.

Many years ago, when I first came to the Shenandoah Valley as a young reporter, I attended one of the anniversary celebrations of Camp Roosevelt. What great stories from the men who had been in their teens and 20s during the Great Depression. They went to work in the CCC often because their families could not afford to keep them at home. They lived in the camps and sent any money they made to their families.

One of my very favorite “secret” spots in Shenandoah County is actually in the center of the county in a little hamlet called Jerome. St. Paul Lutheran Church sits on a small hill surrounded by mountains.

I found this spot when I was out exploring the county one afternoon. I liked to pick a road and follow it just to see what I would find. It helped me learn a lot about the county.

I was charmed by the bright white little church on the hill with the old cemetery on the hillside. But the real treat came when drove up to the church and looked at the view from the church yard. Gentle mountains fold their arms around this church on one side and cattle grazed in a piedmont pasture behind the church. It was a discovery I have never forgotten. When people come to visit me, it is one of my favorite spots to share.

I’ll share some other “secret” spots with you in the future.

As Mother’s Day approaches, I have been thinking about the complicated bond between mother and daughter in general, and my relationship with Mom, in particular.

This coming Mother’s Day is truly a celebration for me. Last October, my mother suffered a stroke which initially severely limited the use of the left side of her body. She could barely lift her arm, had no grip and could not walk unassisted.

The news of Mom’s illness was a crushing blow. My husband and I dropped everything and drove to the hospital in Roanoke where she had been taken. Seeing a loved one in a hospital bed is almost never a good experience, and this was no exception.

She tried her best to smile and put me at ease (once a mother, always a mother), but she was not able to hold her brave face for long. She was shaken. We all were. One day she was Carolyn marching to the beat of her personal drummer and the next she was ripped from routine and role, brought down by a clot no bigger than the head of a pin.

I spent five days (four scary nights) in the hospital with Mom until she was transferred to rehab where she stayed nearly two weeks. Her progress was good, but when she released to go home, she still was weak and could not walk unassisted. Going home was a big challenge because their house is a split level with stairs going from main floor to kitchen and from the kitchen level to the bedrooms.

She nixed any discussion of getting a hospital bed temporarily put in the family room on the first floor. After her stint in hospital and rehab, she was craving her normal life. Eventually, we created a route that included a walker on each floor of the house so that she could go from floor-to-floor – but it was many weeks before that happened.

Simple tasks – from putting on her make-up to opening a jar – suddenly took on a new complexity as she struggled with her weakened left side. Fiercely independent, Mom’s frustration was apparent as she learned to accept help from others which sounds easy, but it’s not.

It has been almost seven months and I am happy to report that my Mom is back to doing things her way. It still takes her a little longer and she gets tired faster, but the progress she has made is miraculous - night and day.

My parents came to Woodstock just two weeks ago for the first time since last year. They normally come up every two or three months. They enjoy the Shenandoah Valley and feel quite at home here.

I was especially happy to have Mom here in the spring because it is so beautiful right now in the Valley. From the lilacs gentle fragrance to the bright red coral belles, even our yard is in full spring mode.

I think of spring as a time of rejuvenation and to see my Mom pull up in the driveway and get out of the car on the driver’s side took my breath away for a moment. Things aren’t exactly the same - they never are, are they?

What happened is the perfect lesson about living in the present. Take every moment and make it great. You will never again be exactly where you are today. There is nothing wrong with that. I think sometimes we (I) get caught up in how things used to be instead of the way things are. OR how things could be if only just…

So this Mother’s Day, I am taking Friday off and I am going to my parent’s home for the weekend and I am going to hang out with my Mom. We will tell family stories and laugh and chat as we take our traditional trip to Churchville to visit our ancestors, and I am going to soak in every moment and be so, so grateful.

On Friday, the sun was gleaming and there was a stiff breeze blowing.

I sat on the second row at the grand opening of the Fort Valley Nursery and Garden Center. Most often when people are attending events, they choose to sit near the middle or back. I guess 20 years of reporting took away any bashfulness. I like being able to see and hear everything.

On this day, I was treated to a beautiful setting. The garden center is covered and open at the same time. The speaker’s podium was decorated with beautiful spring flowers and in the background were rows and rows of flowering trees and shrubs just waiting to be planted.

Friday was Arbor Day and the State Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry, Bob Bloxom, came to Woodstock to the nursery to speak at their grand opening. The new site has been open since late last year, but this was the official opening.

Others also spoke - the Fogle brothers, Terry and Randy, and Warren Schennum, are the co-owners of FVN. They all handle different parts of the business, but they all spoke with enthusiasm, gratitude and humility. They are hard-working people who always have time for their customers. Terry spoke of the people who frequent their establishment not being ordinary customers. “They are as excited and proud as we are,” he said to a warm affirmation from many of those gathered at the event.

Bloxom told the crowd that horticulture and nurseries, as well as wineries, are among the fastest growing segments of agriculture. Shenandoah County is the fifth most agricultural county in the state. He applauded the creativity of the folks at FVN who have combined nursery, landscaping and garden center with a cafe and unique and interesting retail items for decorating home and garden.

Customers can shop for plants and shrubs. Buy organic pesticides and garden tools. And if they grow weary, they can sit for a spell and enjoy the surroundings and an excellent cup of coffee and a homemade cookie or pastry.

Terry told me that when they started considering moving their business to a larger area, they investigated garden centers all over this country and others. They observed that several successful garden centers also offered food and drink (and the really successful ones created a partnership instead of trying to do everything themselves.)

What they have created at the Garden Center is a destination - a place for people throughout the Valley and beyond to come. From the knowledgeable and friendly staff to their extensive offerings, it is the place to go for answers to questions you don’t even know you have.

I took my parents there the next day and Mom not only found out why her lilac has bloomed for 10 years (not enough sun), but was able to purchase an organic product that Terry swears will keep the deer out of her flower beds. The deer have eaten her tulips so thoroughly the last few years that they didn’t even come up this year.

I think Terry and the rest should call themselves counselors. I worked with John for about a half hour one Saturday trying to determine what would be happiest in the flower bed in front of my home which gets afternoon sun filtered by a large oak tree. My limelight hydrangea not only bloomed, it thrived there.

I am pleased with the success of this venture because I have supported it as a customer and because I think that their initiative may spur others to consider options that stretch beyond what we expect and bring us something we didn’t even know we wanted. They followed their hearts and led straight to the hearts of their customers. That is what business should always be about.

My husband patrols our patch of garden out back, squinting as he looks for an invading weed or rabbit footprint.

This year we bought a small tiller so that he would not have to borrow one from a friend. The frost of February had barely faded before he was out turning over the soil.

In March you might have seen him in the co-op one street over, carefully pouring onion sets into small brown paper bags and choosing between red and yellow potatoes.

The summer that we dated, we planted some cucumbers and peppers in a flower bed. They flourished in the flower bed, so in our first year of matrimonial bliss, Kenny decided that we needed to have our own full-blown garden.

We borrowed a tiller and he chugged his way a plot of ground out back near the carport that was about 8 feet by 20 feet. It was rough going. Apparently, a lot of fill dirt - or leftover construction dirt - was used in that area. We found lots of rocks and glass, nails and other construction leftovers.

After he finished turning the ground, we decided to plant onions, green beans, tomatoes, corn and squash.
We learned many lessons that first year. Green beans will send their clinging vines into anything close enough to invade.

Even a tiny garden demands attention. Not so much in the beginning, which is when you are most interested in it. Then summer comes and activities change. My husband is a teacher who becomes a farmer during the summer. He leaves at daylight and often does not return home until dusk. So who do you imagine has to water, weed and harvest? The person who has the least experience in these matters.

Kenny grew up on a farm. His mother cans everything except cans. (For the uninitiated, canning means putting cooked vegetables and fruit in jars.) When we go to West Virginia, we always arrive with empty Mason jars and leave with jars filled with tomatoes, green beans, pickles and even sausage and tenderloin.

I grew up in a rural area, but definitely lived the life of a town girl. I remember my mom and grandmother making peach jelly - once. We often had tomato plants or a pea patch or barrels with squash, but our vegetables were accessories - not serious eating.

Two years ago, we had our best garden ever. I was so proud of the vegetables we harvested that I cleaned and assembled them for a photo with my favorite kitchen chicken. The green beans and radishes were not represented, but in the photo are onions, carrots, potatoes, red cabbages and squash. We also grew leaf lettuce that year and corn, though it did not do as well.

We had a yard sale in our driveway that spring and we got many more compliments on our beautiful garden than we did on any of our sale items. Several people wanted to buy our vegetables!

Our garden has expanded to about 12×35. The dirt is rich and fertile. One year we had to fix the foundation and we moved all of our plants in the landscaping around the house to the garden for the winter. Their nutrients really boosted the garden, I think. We still occasionally have a forgotten bulb bloom in the middle of the veggies.

When I got home this evening, Kenny was standing in the rain by the garden. “Come here,” he called excitedly and when I got to the edge of the garden he pointed out how the potatoes have already started to grow. Onions are up about six inches and the peas have made their presence known.

I know for Kenny this little patch of ground out back is a direct connection to his folks and the farm he grew up on in West Virginia.

For me, it is an opportunity to spend time with my husband - to grow our relationship. As we harvest tasty vegetables, we also feed that part of us that is drawn to the earth. It is a bonus of living here that we choose not to ignore. (And if our tomatoes don’t turn out as we like, there’s always the Farmer’s Market!)

You can’t live in the Shenandoah Valley without having some knowledge of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival.

Locals probably have memories of going to the festival as children and they probably have taken their children and maybe even grandchildren to this 81-year-old tradition that takes place each May in Winchester.

The Apple Blossom Festival has many parts. Events this year start in April with the Old Town Wine and Fine Arts Festival on the Loudoun Street Pedestrian Mall Friday and Saturday, April 25-26.

The carnival starts on Tuesday and runs through May 4. There’s a golf tournament on Wednesday and things switch into high gear on Thursday starting with the Westminster Canterbury Breakfast Walk and ending that evening with a disco dance party.

More concerts and luncheons and celebrities and even the Cole Brothers Circus are some of the Friday highlights. This year’s Queen is Jaqui Rice - the daughter of football great Jerry Rice (known recently for his turn on Dancing With the Stars) and the Queen’s Ball will take place on Friday night as will the Jimmy Buffet tribute band concert. Fireworks will start at 9 p.m. on the Handley High School campus.

Then there is the penultimate event which is the Grand Feature Parade which snakes its way from Old Town Winchester to just beyond Handley High School. The parade starts at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, this year and is once again coordinated by the Winchester Lions Club which does an amazing job of recruiting interesting entries. Dignitaries, floats, animals, marching bands - no local parade can hold a candle to it.

My personal favorite Apple Blossom memory took place in 1993.

The grand marshal of the parade that year was none other than Mary Tyler Moore. It seems that she has a familial relationship with the city of Winchester. Her paternal grandparents were from Winchester and her great-great grandfather rode with Stonewall Jackson in the Civil War. I believe she spent several summers in Winchester when she was a girl.

I know these facts because my friend, Adam, is a monster fan of MTM. He has seen all of her movies - good and bad. He is addicted to her old sitcoms. In other words, she could turn his world on with her smile.

So we ventured to Winchester during Apple Blossom in hopes that Adam would at least get the chance to breathe the same air as Mary Tyler Moore.

We positioned ourselves near the end of the parade route and waited with great anticipation.

Then we spotted her. Sitting in a convertible, waving graciously to the crowds and flashing that bright-white toothy smile - there she was.

Adam was trembling like a Chihuahua. And when the woman of his dreams was right in front of us and he was about to meet her eyes - she looked the other way and waved at some children on the other side of the road.

With one twist of her head, she had crushed my poor friend like a winemaker stomping a grape.

Because we were so close to the end of the parade route, I grabbed Adam’s hand. “Come on!” I shouted and we started jogging behind the crowd.

Just as it looked like we might converge with her motor vehicle at the end of the parade route, the driver started to speed up. Adam dashed into the street and impulsively shouted “I love you Mary Tyler Moore!” to the accelerating vehicle.

She heard him and told the driver to slow down. Flashing her high-wattage smile, she reached down and shook Adam’s hand. “Would you like an autograph?” she asked.

He looked for something she could write on, but we had nothing on us.

He thrust his hand upward and she signed her name on his palm with a black marker.

Some people think of the Apple Blossom Festival as a celebration of spring - as an event the family can share.

I think that is appropriate. For me (and certainly for Adam), when I think of the Apple Blossom Festival, I hear the words to the MTM theme song “…you’re going to make it after all…” and I see Adam victoriously holding his hand in the air as he waved good-bye to Mary.

Find out more about all the fun you and your family can have at the 81st annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival at thebloom.com.

At the end of a long day, I love driving north on Route 11 in the early spring and seeing the Bradford Pear trees in full bloom.

Their bright white blossoms against a blue sky are arresting. On a gray day, it almost looks like the trees have been covered by a mysterious selective snowfall.

I can remember when these pear trees were planted in the late ’80s or early ’90s.

The town manager is a great lover of trees - a Johnny Appleseed of Woodstock. The funny twist to the story is that his last name is Bradford. When one suggests a connection between his choice of tree and his last name, he just grins.

The Bradford Pear is actually native to Korea and China and wasn’t introduced in the United States until the early 1900s and according to the Master Gardeners, the variety did not become commercial until the 1960s.

You will find these trees in many Shenandoah Valley towns. The Bradford Pear is an ornamental tree that has a nearly perfect shape. Its profuse early bloom is desirable and its leaves turn either a deep red or bright orange-red in the fall which is quite a flamboyant addition on my ride to and from work.

I will warn you, however, if you think to yourself “I should take a picture of that tree - it looks so pretty” do it as soon as you can. All too often that happens to me and when I remember to throw the camera in the car, the blossoms have blown away or the leaves have dropped.

While the Bradford is called a pear tree, it does not really bear pears. It does have a small, round brown fruit (a little bigger than a cherry) which will litter the ground briefly and are enjoyed by area birds.

Another reason you will often find these trees along roadways in towns and cities is because they are very tolerant to pollution. They also tolerate most soil types and conditions, are resistant to most pests and require little attention. They usually need to be replaced about every 25 years.

I have noticed that quite a few homeowners also choose to use the Bradford Pear tree in the landscaping around their homes and along long driveways. If you choose to use these trees keep in mind that they are susceptible to wind storms and heavy snows because of their pyramid shape and weak wood.

The Bradford Pears are not the only trees showing off their genetic splendor in these early spring days. Other ornamental trees that are starting to bloom are dogwoods and redbuds.

What I love most about these trees is that you will find them in the wild all over the mountains that surround the Shenandoah Valley. When you are hiking on trails or wandering around wooded lots, you will find these trees happily showing off under a canopy of larger trees.

I’ve been a tree-watcher all my life. When I was a girl, my mother would pack my brother and me into the car and we would drive into Highland County to see the beautiful dogwoods.

We learned that not only is the dogwood beautiful, but it is the state tree of Virginia and, she warned us, the dogwood is protected by the law.

My brother and I once were riding our bikes along a trail between Aunt Helen and Aunt Claudine’s houses and he ran into a small dogwood tree, ripping off a small, flowering branch. We picked up the branch and took it to Aunt Claudine in tears because we were afraid the tree police were going to arrest us for harming its protected branches.

Needless to say, Scott did not have to do hard time for his transgression. But we did learn a new route between the houses.

Come to the Valley this spring! The beautiful blossoms await you.

If shopping were competitive, I would qualify for any contest.

How can I shop competitively if I live in Woodstock, Virginia, at least 45 minutes either way from “shopping centers” and an hour and a half from “the city” (our term for anything past Manassas).

My definition of shopping may be slightly more eclectic than shoes and skirts (though I shop for them as well). Shopping, to me, means searching for exactly the right thing.

Recently at work I was given a laptop computer so that I could work away from work whenever necessary. They gave me a big blue backpack for carrying the laptop – both as protection and as a way of disguising the fact I am carrying a laptop.

I tried it for a few weeks and I must say I just felt dumb carrying a backpack around.

Now, I am not a fussy woman. Or a girlie, girl. I just think once you are past 35, your backpack days should be limited to actual hiking. But that’s me.

So, I began shopping for the perfect laptop computer bag. On the Internet.

I love Internet shopping. I have high speed broadband and I can zip from web site to web site quicker than you can say Google.

I typed in “classy laptop case” and I had hundreds of choices. I ended up going with a low-priced fake leather case on Amazon.com which offered free shipping that day.

Shopping does not always mean putting on shoes.

I have always found retail therapy a soothing way to attack stress. The trick is to stop before the shopping itself adds to the stress. I have ended up with a few items that – after the shopping fog cleared – I truly did not need.

Living in the Valley does not mean you have to shop on the Internet. That’s just one option. Let me share with you one of my favorite shopping haunts in Shenandoah County.

Fort Valley Nursery and Garden Center.

Recently moved to a new location near Lowe’s in Woodstock, Fort Valley has an amazing new space full of fun ideas for outdoor living. They believe that you should enjoy living outside your home too which means everything from finding the perfect shrub to picking out a great chair or chiminea.

The people at Fort Valley are the best. They take the time to discuss any purchase, no matter how big or small. They are full-service landscapers, but they also have pots of sweet-faced pansies that would fit on an apartment stoop as well as a flower bed.

My favorite Fort Valley purchase is probably my sun topiary behind my house. It is seven feet tall and is a blue juniper shaped like the sun.

I had been looking for the perfect thing to put in a section of our property that we had dug up and replaced with landscape rocks. The rocks looked better than the spotty grass, but it was quite barren.
Each week I put something different in the middle of the rocks. A bench. A big clay pot. A smaller clay pot on top of the bench. Nothing looked right.

Then, one Saturday morning, I stopped by the old Fort Valley location and took a walk around the beautiful plants, shrubs and flowering trees.

And there it was. The sun. It was beautiful and I could immediately picture what it would look like behind my house.

The Fort Valley guys delivered it one morning when I was at work and when I came down the driveway at lunchtime (I always go home at lunch to let the dogs out) there was my topiary – perfectly placed. Our barren spot was barren no more.

The satisfaction of finding just the perfect item after exhaustive shopping makes the purchase especially sweet. That is the special satisfaction of shopping that my husband just doesn’t get. But that’s OK. I don’t get the whole sitting outside at 6 a.m. on a November morning dressed like a giant tree limb with a patch of blaze orange.

Other favorite Fort Valley purchases were my red twig dogwood which served as our Christmas tree two years ago (that’s another story) and the limelight hydrangea out front.

Fort Valley Nursery crossed my lips this evening as I told my husband of some phlox I spotted when I was in there buying the perfect housewarming gift last week.

I will look around to make sure I have found the perfect flowering plant, but you can bet I will shop ’til there’s phlox.

It was still dark, but I could hear noises outside.

Not the typical morning noises of which I am accustomed. Instead, I could hear traffic. A quick siren bleated nearby and then again in the distance.

The clock said 6 a.m., but Daylight Saving Time started two days earlier. Saving daylight in the evening means short-changing the morning for a little while.

I got out of bed and almost immediately tripped over an unfamiliar table on my way to the window. Raising the fabric shade on the wall of window was a motion akin to raising a sail - hand over hand pulling a thick cord on pulleys.

The view from the 17th floor of the Hyatt in Arlington was not a typical morning scene for me. Even in the pre-dawn hours, cars slid along round ribbons of highway between tall white and gray buildings - some hotels, some government agencies.

From my window, I could make out a thin white toothpick on the horizon that was well-lit. The Washington Monument! From the rooftop restaurant one floor overhead, I saw the Capitol and the National Cathedral, too.

As the sun started to rise, I could see people scurrying along the sidewalks, already on their way to work. Amid their numbers, I spotted a jogger or two weaving colorfully mismatched threads among the dark overcoats.

I arrived in the city on Sunday. I have never stayed in this part of Arlington before, so I wanted to get to my hotel early and without driving in too much traffic. But even on a Sunday, I-66 was bumper to bumper and even came to a stop at one point.

I am not a city driver. Heck, I usually use back roads to get around Harrisonburg and Winchester to avoid the majority of the traffic. I don’t know any back roads in Arlington, so I followed the directions that Map Quest gave me (which, by the way, were terribly off in terms of estimating how long I would be on particular stretches of highway).

After having a nice breakfast at the Cinnabar Restaurant, I joined the new wave of people on the sidewalks. By 8 a.m., the sun was shining, though the breeze was very cool.

I was surprised to hear a bird loudly chirping, and I slowed to see what type of bird could sing so loudly above the cars racing by. I probably walked a city block before I figured out that the bird call was a warning to pedestrians that they soon would not be able to cross the street because the light was going to change.

I laughed out loud at the thought of the country mouse looking in the budding trees planted in the roadway median for a loudmouth robin.

At lunchtime, I returned to the streets to find someplace to eat which was not difficult once I understood that there are no free-standing buildings in this part of town. You want to go to Quiznos? It is on the first floor of the building adjacent to the skyscraper on Crystal Way. On the first floor of almost all of these buildings were restaurants and stores. In fact, there were entrances to interior shopping throughways. Not exactly malls, but a series of stores linked by a passageway that ran for blocks and blocks.

After class on Monday, I walked about 10 blocks from the hotel. The sidewalks were clean and there were nice big flower pots which probably look fabulous later in the spring. I never was very clear on whether I was in Arlington or Crystal City or if they are one and the same. Everything had a very unified look about it.

My mother gave me advice before I went to the city. (In the Shenandoah Valley, we call anything in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., “the city.”) Don’t carry a handbag with handles; use one that has a long strap that goes across your body. That makes it harder to steal. And don’t look anyone in the eye.

Being a good daughter, I obeyed both instructions. I crammed everything into a smaller purse with a long strap and dutifully kept it pulled around in front so it would be less of a target.

On the second piece of advice, it was really not an issue. People do not meet your eyes in the city. They seldom even turn their face to see who you are as you pass by. But if they do, they do not look at your eyes. I guess they are all listening to their mom’s too.

I fought the traffic home on Wednesday. That was a nightmare. I will never complain about local city traffic again. I had to wait for the HOV restriction to lift on 66 before I could leave and I drove straight into the setting sun which was like driving with a radioactive watermelon sitting on top of my steering wheel.

When got off 81 at Toms Brook, I was so happy to see regular old Route 11. I wouldn’t have cared if someone pulled out in front of me driving a John Deere - anything would be better than city traffic.

The next day I had to go to Food Lion and I took every opportunity to look people straight in the eyes and wish them a good day or at least nod and say hello. And EVERY ONE of them responded pleasantly back to me.

I drove through Woodstock admiring the quaint facades on the buildings downtown, each unique from its neighbor. Not only could I see the whole sky, but I could see the mountains and trees and grass. Real birds were whistling, not traffic lights. And most of the people driving did not seem to be under extreme pressure to get to the next stop light (of course, we don’t have that many to start with and they are farther apart).

The best thing about visiting “the city” is the opportunity to remember just how lucky we are to live in the beautiful and historic Shenandoah Valley. We may have to go somewhere else for conferences or business, but when the trip is over - we get to come home.

I had to look closely, pushing aside some rotting leaves and other fall leftovers.

Meekly making their way through the rich, dark soil, came the shoots of day lilies – a bright green announcement of the coming spring.

Despite the dreary cold and rainy weather, I can feel the sun shining in my heart and mind. Spring is coming! Spring is coming! Spring is coming!

I can’t imagine living someplace where the seasons aren’t showoffs. In the Shenandoah Valley, each season tries his or her best to upstage its cousins.

Every season deserves love and attention, but I don’t think any are anticipated the way Spring is.

(Despite what some would have you believe, it is not proper capitalize the seasons, but for the purpose of this blog I am thinking of Spring as an entity or at least as a noun deserving of capitalization.)

Many birds have started coming back to the Valley after wintering someplace warm. As soon as the sun rises, they start chattering to each other, singing about the months they have been away and catching up on all the bird gossip.

My mother-in-law lives in West Virginia in a very rural area. She has already seen a field full of robins.

I have yet to spy the first red-breasted bird here, but I am sure they will show up soon.

The other evening, when it was a little warmer than usual, I took a stroll around the yard and looked over the flower beds and shrubs. In a week or so, I will slap a little WD40 on my pruners and get to work.

Yard work is work, no doubt. But in the spring, it doesn’t feel like a job. I long to spend time in the yard, picking and planting. In a month, our yard will be transformed by yellow and orange lilies, deep violet rhododendron, cheery coral bells and, best of them all, the pale and deep purples of our fragrant lilacs.

I have to protect my lilacs from my husband who starts whacking on them when the dreaded sumac explodes within the lilac bushes. He cut everything so drastically one year that it took two years before the lilacs would bloom again.

Fall is majestic – especially when the mountains are ablaze with color. Summer is languid – long evenings with time to sit outside and watch the fireflies signal each other with flashing lights. Winter is regal – royal jewels of ice sparkle on birdbaths and lamp posts above a bed of pristine snow.

But Spring. Ah, Spring. Spring is magical.

Her miraculous fingers caress the trees and bring forth peach and apple blossoms. Redbuds and dogwoods smile from every nook and cranny and tulips and daffodils parade alongside homes and highways.

The fields become a luscious green and calves, lambs and colts run and play and sleep in the arms of Spring’s gentle breeze.

Spring seems to be the shortest of seasons. All too soon the temperatures will rise and the gnats and flies will return. But there’s no time to think of that now. Now is the time to watch for green shoots and leaf buds and Spring’s favorite red-breasted messenger.

I came to Shenandoah County to work at a local weekly newspaper.

A graduate of Bridgewater College, I first worked at the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg.

In 1985, the former editor of the newspaper in Woodstock jumped ship to start his own paper and took a great deal of the staff with him. So I came from Harrisonburg with the newly-appointed editor to start my stint as a reporter in a town whose name I associated with either a 1960s concert or a character in the Peanuts cartoon.

Woodstock seemed like a nice place. Smaller than my home city of Covington, but big enough to have stores and fast food restaurants.

I didn’t plan to stay here long.

Two years, I told my new editor. I can promise I will be here for two years.

That was 22 years ago.

I stayed at the newspaper 17 years, eventually becoming the editor and general manager. In 2002, I left the paper, but not without leaving behind a little bit of my heart.

During my tenure at the newspaper, I covered government, politics, sports and crime. But more than anything, I enjoyed telling the stories of the people of Shenandoah County.

I found the residents of this area to be generous and kind, warm and friendly. Many interviews with strangers ended up being the start of a beautiful friendship.

Take Ginger, for instance.

Someone called the newspaper to tell us about a woman living in Mount Olive who had a German shepherd that had received many competitive awards.

A dog lover stranded in an apartment complex that didn’t allow dogs, I was eager to take the assignment.

I can still remember pulling up in front of her farmhouse and being completely embarrassed because I could not remember her name. There were two names associated with the story – Ginger and Katie. I looked at the friendly lady and her tawny shepherd. Which one was Ginger? Which one was Katie?

As it turns out, Ginger was the lady and Katie the dog. This interview took place in the late 1980s and Ginger is still one of my dearest friends. She helped me buy my first dog – literally, she paid half of the cost of an English Springer Spaniel pup who was purebred and way too expensive for a reporter to buy.

She taught obedience class and let me bring Coalie (my Springer) to class until he was the head of the class.

And she was there for me when I had to put Coalie down. He is buried under the chestnut trees above the garden at her farm.

Ginger is the best example of the people I met over the years by virtue of stepping into their lives for just a moment. Sometimes the stories were amazing – like the postman who delivered his own baby.

And sometimes the stories were sad – like the man whose son was killed when he was hunting because he was not wearing blaze orange. He felt it was important to tell the story so no one else would have to lose their son in such a preventable way.

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to share in the lives of this great community of people – from the hills of Fort Valley to the other side of the ridge in Zepp. They are artists and anglers, doctors and dog-owners, pilots and preachers. All fascinating in their own ways. Each a story waiting to be written.

And, after almost 23 years of living here, I also feel privileged to say Shenandoah County is my home. My story has merged with this wonderful community.