Spring has officially sprung

I’ve written about all of the seasons save one. I’ve written about how fall is my favorite season, I’ve complained to no end about winter and I’ve written how summers here are a fantastic season.

But I’ve yet to write about my least favorite season: spring.

You may be wondering, “Why does Gray hate spring?” One word, three syllables: allergies. Yes, if you’re like me then you have horrendous seasonal allergies. Springs growing up meant watery eyes, stuffy nose and just a general feeling of feeling like garbage.

But then I moved to South Dakota, where we don’t have to worry about pollen like we did back in Maryland or Pennsylvania. Sure, my allergies are bad this time of year, but it’s not to the point where I’m popping allergy pills like they’re going out of style.

Now, my overall opinions on spring have changed.

Each season, for me, has a specific kick off point. Fall always starts for me the first time I cover a high school football game. Winter kicks off around my birthday. Summer always kicks off the first time I enter a body of water — whether that’s a pool, the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean off Assateague Island in Maryland or going into a lake here after a hot day.

That left spring. For the longest time, spring didn’t have a kick off point for me. Sure, I guess growing up I could say that it was the kick off to lacrosse season, but that wasn’t the most enjoyable thing for me, so while it might have kicked off spring it wasn’t for happy reasons. I could say that it was the first game of the Phillies season, but my brain is on baseball all year round, so that didn’t really work.

I didn’t have an “official” kick off for spring in my head until we moved here. We started something here that I never understood growing up: gardening. Now, for me, the day I buy the seeds for our garden is the first official day of spring for me.

It’s funny, when my dad had a garden when I was growing up, I didn’t quite get it. “Why would you want to grow your own food when you can buy it at the grocery store?” I always wondered. “Why go through all of that effort?”

Now I get it. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as eating a vegetable or fruit or whatever that you grew yourself. You can look down at whatever you just picked from the vine and say, “I grew this. This is mine.”

And the taste? The taste is sublime. I grew up eating fresh produce from my friends’ farms and what-not, and those tomatoes, ears of corn and fresh squash always tasted fantastic. But when you grow it yourself in your own garden, well, it tastes even better then.

And don’t worry — we’re not putting any seeds in the ground yet. We know we can’t logically do that for another couple of months or so. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started! We started growing our seeds inside, putting them in old toilet paper rolls we cut up. This way (hopefully), our produce will be good and ready by the time the last frost hits.

Spring here is just so different than spring back on the East Coast. Yes, spring here and spring there is pleasant weather-wise, but it feels like the humidity of the East Coast — the same humidity that makes it nearly unbearable to go outside during the summer — makes it nearly impossible to do anything outside. Here, though, it’s different.

I went for a 10-mile bike ride the other day. The same act would’ve left me near death (I kid!) back on the East Coast, but here the weather was perfect (save for the headwind I had going back, which was almost all uphill). You can go hiking, fishing and, when open, even skiing. It really is perfect.

Yes, now that I live here I no longer hate spring. It might still be my least favorite season, but thanks to being able to comfortably doing stuff outside like gardening, biking and hiking I no longer dread this time of year.