I was up early last Tuesday digging spuds before it got too hot to be pleasant. 

What a time to be alive! The sights, the sounds, the smells! And the exquisite feeling of the finest droplets of water flinging from the pollen laden Soteria flowers onto my face as I bumped their tall stems. What a time to be alive in the garden!

If we are early risers (or NOT!), or if we would like to be but just can't get out of our comfy bed, I think we all unconsciously subscribe to Ben Franklin's 1735 mantra "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." It just makes sense, doesn't it?

And it seems others long before Ben had come to the same conclusion. In 1639 John Clarke's Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina included the proverb nearly in its current form: "Earely to bed and earely to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

And way back in 1486, The Book of St. Albans indicates it was an old thought even then! "As the olde englysshe prouerbe sayth in this wyse. Who soo woll ryse erly shall be holy helthy & zely." Now I'm not sure if you feel 'zely' when you get up early, but I'm sure you want to! 

So if you don't have your own special place to get up early, watch the sun rise, set the direction for a great day (and feel a bit zely!), I'm happy to share my potato patch (and digging fork) with you. And if I'm a bit late, start on the 4th row of Pontiac's without me...

Note: In 1486 the Middle English word 'zely' meant 'auspicious; fortunate'.