April is a schizophrenic month. One day can be sunny and sixty; the next day can be snowing and seventeen. It is slush and mud season in the North. Rubber boots are de rigueur in the country where melting snowbanks make for a soggy mess. While I always look forward to the first Round-lobed Hepatica peaking its delicate white head out of last year’s maple leaves, I also dream of escaping to drier, warmer, less gray climes.

Texas Topography
One April excursion that will brighten your early spring is the Hill Country of central Texas. Just west of Austin is the rolling landscape of the Edward’s Plateau where waterfalls and clear rolling rivers punctuate the countryside. In early to mid April the roadsides are littered (can you say that about wildflowers?) with native flowers. Highway 290 is a good corridor from which to explore this country.

Read the rest of the Sparky's column in our April issue...