Fall Cleanup

(My garden angel ponders the coming of winter.)

Yesterday was the first day of Standard Time.  I spent my "extra hour" in the sunshine of a crisp fall day, raking the fall leaves.

Back in the "old days" the leaves would have totally fallen before Halloween.  In our new climate over the past several years, the leaves hang on longer and longer each year.  We had a hard freeze yesterday, and when spouse and I left our house yesterday for a breakfast out, the green leaves were falling off the trees.

So, yesterday afternoon, I raked, and spouse (saving my bad back) put the leaves into bags.  It was a perfect day, and it wasn't even windy.  While I raked, spouse struggled with our new washing machine, which had its first malfunction.  Dear spouse also dug up our glads and our dahlias.

We don't have too much more fall garden work.  The community garden is already cleaned out, done for the year.  Spouse will take the leaves down to the community garden. Since we can keep the same plots year after year, we've been building up organic matter over the years with leaves and other organic matter.  Some of the leaves will also make it into a composting container in our back yard.

For many years, we would already had snow on the ground by November 7. Now the ground isn't even frozen.  This lack of snow I am grateful for, and I hope the snow delays itself as long as possible.