Spring, just as it breeds new life from the dark, cold soil of my yard, thrusts upon me a new morning routine.

The new sod needs watering. If the various experts on the internet, and YouTube, and the gardening store, and the cabal of professional garden experts, and the capitalists of “Big Sod” are all to be believed, that watering must be done first thing in the morning. Like the HomeGoods mother whose painted wooden sign reads, “But, first, coffee,” my sod demands its morning beverage with the impatience of a suckling.