I’ll tell you how the sun rose,—
A ribbon at a time.

-Emily Dickinson

You know how I know?

Because I have my own alarm clock: powered by nature, dependable as the sun, and impossible to shut off.

As some of you may recall, my normal day begins pre-dawn, as I get up at 5:00 to see Jeff off to work. (Actually, I wake up at 4:30 when his alarm FIRST goes off, and try like hell to fall back asleep during those maddening eight-minute intervals, but we’ll discuss that some other day.)

Then I take a nap until it’s time to get the boys up at 6:45. So, it stands to reason I’d miss the actual ribbons of sunrise, right?

WRONG. Mr Downy Woodpecker here, he has discovered the beam on my deck that we added as a clothesline post. And every morning he is hammering away.

Woodpecker drumming is generally charming and outdoorsy, except when it is taking place at 6:00am and just a few yards away from your head. And man, you should see the chips fly. It is really something else.

Funny how for years I was putting out premium feed to attract these guys– they like peanuts and suet feeders, by the way– only to have them show up uninvited before I’ve had my coffee.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. It’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, in the mor-ning.

The obvious solution, of course, is to get up at 5:00 and stay up, and then go to bed earlier that night.

That has been my plan for, oh, the last three weeks. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is week. And tired.

How do your mornings go?