March 2026 – All of Sudden Spring is Here

(Hey guys, March was a really sad month here for me at Grandma’s house. I’m really sorry to say that I lost my dog Link. It happened fast and the right thing to do was the worst thing I’ve had to do in a long time. I had started writing this post about trees and spring and how I’m looking forward to my garden meanwhile my poor little dude went down hill so fast… So I wanted to let you guys know what’s going on before I mention it at the end of this post. When I wrote it I had no idea I’d be losing my little doggo so soon. RIP my little Link.)

March 2026 was a month of extremes for us here in northern MN. We saw 60 degrees, over a foot of snow and negatives in the teens. Not totally unusual for March but the last cold front in the negatives had us all whining a little bit, “Can this be it, PLEASE?!”

And it was – thank goodness! One day our forecast suddenly said 60s and all of our snow disappeared in just a couple of days. My yard was a glorious disaster. (After being cold for so long no one complains about mud.) Even though we ended up with quite a bit of snow I still only needed to have my driveway plowed twice.

For northern Minnesota it was actually a pretty mild winter for us. I became an auntie again in early March of a baby girl. She was almost 10 pounds and her and mama are doing good! They named her Apphia which I think is so pretty, it is pronounced like a cross between Athena and Sophia.

I got all of my showers fixed by replacing all three valves with two separate handles. No more having to run a separate water source to get hot water and no more issues with valves getting clogged up with minerals.

I had to remember how to patch sheetrock again but I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself!

With those patches complete its like it never happened except that I now have three working showers! I actually had to change out my shower head in my master bathroom because it was too high of water pressure for me – never thought that would be possible in this house. It is amazing!

Its been seven months since Lodi’s arrest for assaulting me. The restraining order means its illegal for him to contact me, come near me, my home or my place of work. I haven’t spoken to nor seen him since and I never intend to. Unfortunately the divorce is still unfolding. I know its normal for these things to take forever but… DAMN.

My 350 tree seedlings will be available sometime in the next couple of weeks and I’m starting to get anxious lol. My boss already knows I’m going to get the email one day and have to leave work ASAP to pick them up. I have five days (at the most) to get them in the ground or I’ll be risking losing them.

I purchased those little orange marker flags for each of them so that’s going to be pretty exciting to see all 350 flags waving away across my whole back field.

My biggest concern is whether or not the deer are going to leave them alone but unless I want to wrap all 350 of them up in chicken wire there isn’t much I can do about it.

Fingers crossed it won’t be a problem!

My other concern is whether or not its going to rain enough as watering over an acre is a bit out of my reach… I am absolutely going to water all of them when I first plant them though its going to mean hauling around a lot of water. Fortunately I have a great little yard cart that I’ll be able to fit a lot of trees in and a couple of 5 gallon buckets with water besides.

So that was the post I was working on for this March 2026…

Beautifully boring and normal… even hopeful…

I hate coming on here with bad news because its starting to feel like a pretty frequent thing.

Back in January my dog Link developed a pretty bad cough that escalated to a cough that was CONSTANT. I took him in and he was diagnosed with the beginnings of heart disease. (Totally normal for a 16 year old dog and no reason he wouldn’t be ok for a long time with medication. It wasn’t severe.)

He was still really good at that point. Dancing around and doing spins when I got home from work… except for that damn cough.

He had something else going on which, sadly, is also super common for dogs of his breed and age. His trachea was arthritic and collapsing. Basically the poor little guy would get worse and worse until he literally couldn’t breathe anymore.

With medication and cough suppressants my vet and I got him by for awhile.

I am so glad he made it until spring. Every day his last week I would come home and find him out in his dog kennel just soaking up the sunshine and nice weather.

Dad and I poured the love on him.

With his struggling to breathe he also started struggling to eat. We got him chicken nuggets and hot dogs and anything else he wanted.

The poor little guy would just lay there gasping except for once or twice a day when he would manage to get up and toddle out to the kennel to do his business. (He never once had an accident in the house even though I would have never blamed him.)

I took him in on an emergency visit on a Wednesday morning.

He could barely breathe.

I thought they might be able to do something, drug him up maybe and give him a little more time. They tried everything. They even put him in his own little oxygen chamber where me and my vet just stood there watching him gasp hoping so much to see some kind of improvement that never came.

I couldn’t take him home like that.

It happened fast and the heart disease was making it even harder for him to breathe besides. When my blog post came out in February I almost mentioned his cough but he was still doing pretty good then.

He only got 7 months of peace with me.

I’ll be forever glad for that though it would never be enough time. To have him running to me for cuddles after the years of him hiding when Lodi was here. To hear the little guy yip and rush to greet anyone coming in. It was amazing. Something I never thought I would see. Even getting up on the couch for cuddles with my dad and my friends.

He was happy in the end, he seemed glad for his life here with me.

March 2026 I wanted to bring him with me so I could bury him but wrapping him up in his blanket and bringing that cold little bundle home… I failed… I just couldn’t do it. So I had him cremated.

When I get his ashes I’ll bury them out in the kennel in his favorite sunny spot.

Give your fur babies a hug for me tonight

(I went looking for my best photos of Link and I absolutely have to start with a photo from his groomer. The last time he went in for a bath and “manicure” was just a few weeks ago and when he was ready they sent me this picture with the snowy background and nothing else lol. I was like, “So, I’m assuming its time for me to pick my handsome boy up?” It was so cute! The next photos are from last spring when I had them give him a “summer cut” and I still can’t believe how different he looked – like he was literally just a puppy! God I’m gonna miss him.)