I did something the day after Christmas that I never would have dreamed possible – I planted tulips.

I wasn’t waiting until Dec. 26 to work on a spring garden, but when I saw the bulbs on sale at half price at Job Lot, I thought I still had time. It wasn’t too late, according to the instructions that advised they be planted before the first hard frost. No question, the temperature was on my side.

Carol thought that along the drive would be nice, an area where hosta bloom in mid-summer.

“Just between there and the lawn would be great,” she said. I wasn’t going to suggest somewhere else, as we would have likely postponed planting altogether – and who knows, in another week, it could be snowing.

I seized the moment, grabbing the plastic bag of bulbs. Carol was taken back. She didn’t expect I would have acted so quickly.

“I’ll be out in a moment, after I make a call.”

I knew what that meant, and headed for the garage to find a shovel.

The ground was hard, and not because of the temperature. It was a tight web. The first three or four inches were a braid of grass and shrub roots that peeled back like a heavy mat. I worked the shovel, slicing off the roots. I then stepped on the blade expecting to cut into the loam below. It was like a rock, only a second layer of roots, some as thick as broomsticks. It’s no wonder the grass hardly grew here, and water pools whenever there’s a hard rain. This wasn’t easy work, but for tulips to have a chance, I wanted the ground to be soft and root-free.

Carol was certain I would face still another challenge – squirrels. She’s blamed them for digging up other bulbs we’ve planted. From beds of scores of daffodils, only a handful of flowers appear in the spring, although miraculously the Easter hyacinths, pulled from their pots after blooming and shoved into the ground, come up year after year.

“Squirrels don’t like tulips,” I declared as convincingly as possible.

“Well, then what ate off the heads of the tulips in the round garden?” she asked. She had me there; I don’t think Ollie likes eating flowers.

I wasn’t going to let her arguments stop me, and, after all, she had even suggested a place to plant tulips.

Ollie was fascinated with my labor. He sniffed the excavation, nose twitching. There were no buried bones. He checked out the bulbs next. I didn’t say a thing. Could he have been our bulb thief?

He wasn’t interested. I continued shoveling and then pausing to shake the earth from the matted earth.

I felt in some kind of time warp. This is just what I do in preparing the vegetable garden in the spring, to the chorus of spring birds and fat robins running and then pausing, as the first grass, yellow green, pushes up from the occasional violets that just grow naturally. But now the serenade was of wintering ducks and geese on the bay and the twit-twit of the cardinal demanding his handout of sunflower seeds.

This was totally out-of-sync – planting tulips in December. What was next, spring cleaning on New Year’s Day?

I knelt and worked my hands into the earth. It was soft and surprisingly warm. I positioned the bulbs two and three inches apart, and then with my fingers raked in the loose earth I had shaken free from the roots.

“Wow, it looks like you’re almost done,” Carol said, arriving at the scene. It turned out my bed of tulips wasn’t exactly where she had planned, but fortunately it was acceptable.

Now, I thought, we’ll have something to look forward to. We’ll think back to that crazy warm December and always remember the Christmas tulips.

I tamped down the ground and left my footprints in the dark earth. I grabbed the shovel and headed for the garage.

It wasn’t a minute later that I spotted Ollie. He has digging furiously, the earth flying from between his rear legs.

He stopped when I yelled, “No,” but stood his ground. He looked thrilled, his nose coated in dirt and two or three bulbs already unearthed. I picked them up, scooped out holes, and reburied them all the while telling Ollie, “No, you’re not to dig these up.”

He watched, anxious to be a part of the action.

“OK,” I declared, “let’s play.”

I threw a stick and then found a tennis ball for him to chase.

Maybe, just maybe, that freeze will come before he returns to the tulips.

What, am I wishing for winter? This really is upside down.