March 24th – 6:18 AM

Casey is barking at the bottom of the stairs and I couldn’t be more excited to hear her. I may have only had a few good hours of sleep the prior night (thanks “Walking Dead” you evil bastards) but it is the first time in days that our 14 1/2 year old Lab woke us up with her typical morning greeting.

Out of the blue a few days earlier, she struggled to walk and appeared to develop severe pain in her right front leg. It got to the point where I had to carry her outside each time she had to use the facilities.

But after sweating it out for a few days and an eventual visit to the vet, we thankfully discovered it was only her arthritis flaring up again. A few laser treatments and some good meds later, she was close to being her self again. Including the morning wake-up call.

So I happily jump out of bed, jog down the stairs, shut off the alarm and head outside with my little girl (no need to carry any more). Of course, I forget that we are still in our eighth consecutive month of winter and proceed to freeze my friggin ass off. A t-shirt and boxers in 19 degree temps kind of hurts.

But now a dramatic pause …

You feeling it?

Because even though I have icicles hanging from my eyelids, I yelp like a teenage girl when I saw this:

That would be the first sign of Allium ‘Globemaster’, she of the softball sized bloom. I can’t truly explain the jolt I receive when I set eyes on this beauty but it is enough to get me to not only ignore the cold, but to subsequently get properly dressed and head back outdoors prior to leaving for work that morning.

All I want to do is spend fifteen minutes cutting back some perennials so I could look at the new growth. It feels like a calling and I am ready to oblige. F the winter.

B-bye Peony dead foliage:  

Time to make way for the “new”:

Later Baptisia deadness:

Let the sun shine in and grow you little bastard:

The energy I have is palpable. I roll right from perennial cutting to Crabapple tree pruning. Nothing major but enough to clean things up a bit.

Here is the “before”:

And the “after”:

I then quickly head indoors and acknowledge that I should probably take down the Christmas lights one of these days:

Elapsed time ends up being closer to thirty minutes but I still have enough time to shower, get the kids on the bus and make it to work on time.

The ideal start to the work week.