Within 48 hours of being given permission by our landlords, we had assembled raised beds, moved over four tons of soil and raided a plant sale. All of the vegetable starts and seeds are in the ground now, thrown into the pit of confusion that is spring along with turkey hunting and spring fishing.

It’s bordering on cold this morning, but within a week when turkey season opens, highs nearing 100 degrees are forecasted. This is the common volatility of Texas spring. Another freeze, though highly unlikely at this point, is a possibility and would feel like nothing more than Texas Texasing on everyone. I always look to the wise pecan trees for this guidance. They stubbornly refuse to show the slightest hint of bud until the very last threat of frost has passed. Being a stalwart native, and our State Tree, I regard their hesitancy with great respect. Bluebonnets, the State Flower, are much more brazen and can begin to flaunt their blossoms in February on warm days, which also coincides with the beginnings of the white bass and crappie spawns.

All of these points are simply made to underline the extremes and frantic nature of our season of rebirth. Winter exists here as a respite from the heat: usually mild and brief, but punctuated with extreme bouts of cold. Spring feels like a time for humans and nature to quickly get all of the biological errands done before summer returns, ominous and unrelenting.

I like to think of the spring garden as side dishes for white bass, crappie and turkey. These vegetables – the green ones, particularly – do very well in these roles. It’s time for asparagus, peas, greens of all kinds, artichokes, lettuces, a myriad of herbs and the last of the citrus. And, of course, strawberries universally for dessert. These lighter, more delicate vegetables play well with the small fillets from the feisty white bass we will catch and the fine-textured crappie, too. The last of the previous season’s turkey is generally consumed the night before or during the first turkey hunt, by tradition, making room for its ostensible replacement on the plate with some spinach, or baked under a crust with peas and carrots or marinated in a lot of herbs and wild onions (picked while white bass fishing) and then grilled.

As the garden matures and produces on the tail end of our spring, the first of the peppers (hot and sweet), tomatoes (slicers, cherries and canners), tomatillos, eggplant, basil, potatoes, pole beans and cucumbers will offer themselves into what I hope to be a real surplus of fillets and poultry. The cooking dynamic will shift from the green delicacies of true spring to the acidic, textured, robust and spicy accoutrements of summer. 

The peppers give me real fits. As one of my two plant obsessions (along with citrus), peppers are something we will consume with almost every meal in some form or another. We preserve them by drying, smoking, freezing and pickling, so the concept of ‘too much’ is entirely moot. I can never have enough peppers. The question is which peppers do I plant? A serrano or jalapeno provides a lot of fruit and the right heat for a multitude of applications, so yes to some of these. I’ll also need a thick-walled sweet pepper like a piquillo, Big Jim, Anaheim or Hungarian that can go raw in salads, char on the grill or be dried for later use in the form of paprika.

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The white bass are going to have a fraught year. Water levels are extremely low, rendering my normal home run spot for them unfishable, covered in stagnant algae and lacking the flow they require for their eggs to hatch. This will funnel the fish and the fishermen to the crowded river section where I’m unwilling to go because of the lack of solitude and the abundance of diapers, beer cans, fishing line and other detritus of uncaring abusers of our resources. This could mark a season – the first in almost four decades – where I might not catch a white bass during their run in a springtime muddy creek.

Luckily, the crappie seem less affected by this lack of flow and are forging on with their spawn. In fact, I have a lovely fishing date planned tomorrow with my lady, creekside at night with the full array of lights, long poles, minnows, a bottle of wine and an Italian sub. This night fishing tradition is possibly my favorite way to fish and usually results in a few fat crappie. There is also the distinct possibility that a white bass or blue catfish will also help themselves to a dangled minnow. 

You can watch the dewberries progress throughout the run. The buds, tightly closed, populate the sinister, thorned vines during the first trips to the lake and creeks, followed by a sudden blossoming as the crappie really start to invade the shallows. Soon, the brambles on sunny banks will be loaded with white flowers; coincidentally, the cutbanks with overhanging dewberry vines are excellent cover for spawning crappie. By the time they’ve made it to ripened fruit, the white bass are long done with procreation and have returned to the main lake, and the crappie are on the downslope of the same pattern. Ripe dewberries will therefore require a dedicated excursion, though there is some overlap with late-season turkey hunting, where the possibility of a dead tom and a pouch full of ripe berries is real.

Turkeys will take up the bulk of my spring. I have a literal month of turkey hunting planned for this spring, which far outweighs any other undertaking I do annually. To explain the allure of turkey hunting to a non-turkey hunter requires some time, emotions and maybe a drink or two, but I’ll let my schedule speak for itself. I enjoy eating turkey the most, and will have fried turkey and dewberry cobbler for my birthday dinner in mid-May, hopefully.

The vest is packed with calls, the shotguns patterned with pricey shells and I’ve annoyed the entire house with my turkey calling, or the incessant listening to or watching others call on YouTube. I’ll be hunting in four states this year, a treat I allow myself only for turkeys, really. While I’m not actively trying to kill one in the 49 states they inhabit, I’m aware of its allure.

Soon enough, I’ll be exhausted from all the hunting and fishing. The garden will have its first casualties, whether from some plant virus, the excavations of a derelict cat, a windblown limb or maybe just too much early heat. Turkey season will not go as I think it will; it never, ever does. There will invariably be far less fish fillets in the freezer this year, too, simply from the drought and lack of trying. But, the constants of spring are the volatilities, unknowns and vicissitudes of the short time of year we have, and I mean this as all the living things trying to get things done under a looming deadline. This drive – an investment, really –  is ingrained into turkeys, white bass and I alike, as we all busily dedicate ourselves to a bountiful future.