One-a-Day sounds like a multi-vitamin pill. I’m talking gardening, not supplementing my diet, though gardening could be hard to swallow for a novice. When neighbor Joyce loaned me some of her home gardening books, I learned that there are a number of shrubs that need to be pruned in February. All these years, I’ve wasted the month dreaming of snow, certainly not going out in the garden to trim bushes. Today the thermometer outdid itself, showing 59 F (15C) well before noon. That kind of warmth could not be ignored.

I began my one-a-day plan of trimming a single plant. Knowing I had to use both hands, I took David’s suggestion of nudging Kacey toward her large bone on the porch. She accepted that I wasn’t going back to one-handed gardening and whined occasionally to remind me she would prefer to be getting in the way.

Beginning near the fence between me and the horses, I cut a crepe myrtle, leaving a foot of dry sticks for the plant to dream with. It has had eight years to dream of becoming a tree, but I have kept it from chasing the Wicked Wisteria. So far, so good. We’ll see if snow will get the forecaster’s memo this weekend.