What A Difference A Week Makes Here In The North Country

[Henry]

Was thinking this morning with our Roving Memorial Day, what a difference it makes, especially up here in the North Country.  I've seen times when some beautiful flowers were planted in the cemeteries for Memorial Day and they ended up being a frozen slimy mess come the big day.  Many of us in the "Frost Pockets" always planted our tender plants on Memorial Day, however, found that once we started having the "Roving Memorial Day" it might be best to wait until at least May 30 - June 1.

Looking at the forecast for the next 5 days, one might be safe, however, we are still nine days from the old designated Memorial Day.

Memorial Day at my Old One Room School in Fairfield consisted of all of us kids going over to Bradley Cemetery and putting the flags on the graves of our veterans.  It was kind of lumped together with a learning experience about some of the Veterans in the cemetery and the wars they fought in, making it just a bit more real for us than reading about it in a book.

It could be a sign of the times, but I notice Mary was asking about activities for Memorial Day.  I did see something someplace about a parade in Essex Junction effecting 5-Corners traffic, but that is about it.

[Loctavious]

I hear what you're saying Henry.  I've been working on the Fletcher Soccer fields for the past 4-5 years.  I've come to understand that though there's some warm weather in April and May, the threat of frost isn't over until summer is on your doorstep( late may). 
A constant effort is growing grass on the fields.  Softball & baseball do their spring clean-up in April.  But Soccer has to wait if they want to grow grass for a few reasons:

1) weather has to be an average of 50 degrees or higher to grow the type of grass one wants to play soccer on.
2) the type of grass you play soccer on takes anywhere from 3-7 days to germinate ( depending on nighttime lows) and is VERY fragile in it's infancy.  If people were to walk on it - they'd kill it.
3) Softball and Baseball aren't done until June - thus if you want to reduce the risk of new grass being trampled - you wait until the sports and school season is over ( or fence the area off with snow fence)
4) there's always a week of rain during one part of the day and partly sunny the other half.  THIS IS PRIME GRASS GROWING WEATHER - Lows of mid 50's, days of partial rain and sun.  Grass grows really quickly in the right conditions.

Thus every year i watch the future forecast and await the 'perfect' window to grow grass.  In the past 2 years I've really achieved some success with my timing and have managed 30-60% success with the areas i seed.