Spring

Spring was always an exciting time in Rupert. Dad would haul out the rototiller and plow up the ginormous garden. I mean, this garden was huge! I would like to say it was a full acre, but it probably wasn't quite that large. Close, though.

After the garden was tilled, we would all pitch in to help plant the crops for the year. Dad would put a stick in at the end of each intended row. Then he would tie a string to either end, thereby giving us a guide for the row. He, or one of us would then use a hoe to create a furrow.

Peas usually went in first - and I remember that Dad would have them coated with some type of fertilizer. All of us kids would take a can of peas and follow the string, place peas in the soft dirt.

We would do the same with beans, corn, carrots, dill, onions, and potatoes. Though with potatoes you don't actually plant seeds. You plant portions of a potato. Each of those eye-thingys on the potato has the potential to become it's own plant.

Tomatoes...that was a different story. We would go to one of the greenhouses in town, or sometimes Twin Falls, and take home several flats of tomato plants. Each one would be carefully place in the soft soil, placed in deep enough that the soil would cover it's bottom leaves.

I really liked planting season. I liked the smell of the air. I liked how the dark soil felt on my hands and feet. (Yes, I was generally barefoot.) I liked seeing all the plants come back to life. The forsythia with it's brilliant yellow, the overly fragrant lilacs. But my favorite was always the wild yellow roses that grew at the bottom of the garden. As a teen, I took it upon myself to prune them every spring. Trying to encourage the best growth possible.

When I was younger, spring might also mean baby animals. But that's an entirely different story.