Family Webicine: Treating Spring Fever

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Rheumatic fever; scarlet fever; typhoid fever...you name a disease and medical science is likely to have a fever for it. I deal with fevers every day in my clinic, but the worst of all fevers, in my opinion, is Spring Fever and I've got it. Spring fever can only be cured by going outside to play in the dirt. Spring fever does not respond to Tylenol.

I know that many parts of the U.S. (and Canada) are still buried in snow, but in Northern California we are starting to see some definite signs of spring. Flowers and trees are blooming, frogs are calling for mates, grass is growing, mosquitoes are buzzing, and of course, the weather is much warmer. I am itching to get outside and do something...anything. I am definitely a warm weather person.

Every year, I get tricked by a "false spring". I will go out and buy some vegetable plants, trying to get an early start in the garden, only to have them covered by one last snow storm and die. This year, I am not going to do it, but it is very tempting to take a chance.

There is nothing like working 12-hour clinic shifts when the weather is so great outside. All winter long, medical offices are crowded by sick people, and of course, medical providers get sick, too. Sometimes I am glad that I cannot look out of the windows in my office (too high on the wall), otherwise, I think I would be more depressed.

Today, I fertilized and weeded the lawn and restarted the automatic sprinklers. I picked up the remaining dead limbs that fell off of the trees during a recent storm (rain and wind, not snow!), and carried off a few hundred pounds of leaves to the compost pile. My compost from last year has been spread on the plants and fruit trees. We have lots of lemons and kumquats.

All of the daffodils are blooming - thousands of them. When we planted the bulbs, we did go a bit overboard. I have a few rogue flowers popping up in the lawn that I will have to dig up now that they have been located. Camellias are also blooming and the hummingbirds have returned.

Yesterday, four large deer - three bucks with impressive racks and one lucky doe - were happily eating grass in the lawn. I love watching deer, but I saw them looking at my blooming fruit trees. I suspect that as long as the grass is green and growing, they may leave the trees alone. Most of our trees are deer-fenced; the new bare root trees are not fenced (yet).

The only thing growing in the winter raised-bed garden are onions and weeds. The weeds are more impressive. I may till up the soil next week and lay down a load of chicken manure (second best to turkey manure), in preparation for planting the veggies. Again, I am going to hold off until the end of April this year before taking a chance. Last year, it snowed on April Fools Day - proving, once again, that I was a fool to plant so early.

The sun is now setting and I can see the snow-capped Sierras outside my window. I still hear birds singing; dogs barking (my own); and the sky is blue and clear. It really does appear that spring has sprung. We will see.

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