Fall (Just Say No to Winter)

Fall is here -- mostly I can tell because I am already ankle deep in leaves in my yard.  No pecans yet ... I wonder what type of year for pecans it will be.  I look up at the tree and I don't really see any up there. 

Red got up on my roof this weekend and swept the leaves off for me, and threw down some tree branches that had fallen down.  I must admit that while I have been under my house twice (once without a zoot suit even!) I have not been up on my roof.  It's precarious -- the front pitch in particular is very steep.  I'm really grateful that he was willing to climb up and do a little fall maintenance for me.  And my dog was pleased to get brand new dried sticks to chew on -- they just fell from the sky!  Dreams do come true, Toto.

My lawn doesn't need mowing, but I sure do have leaves that need mulching, so I'll probably run my mower over the front yard tonight.  The leaves will be so good for the lawn.  (And it would be nice to be able to see my sidewalk again too...)

In anticipation of cooler temps and winter winds, I fussed with door weather stripping in the last week.  The front door still needed some attention, and Red attended to that yesterday morning.  I still have a bottom door strip (brush?  I don't know what you call it -- it goes under the door) but I need help taking the door off the hinges to install it.  I've got time... it's not winter quite yet.

I swapped out my jack'o'lanterns for solid pumpkins, and added my wooden pilgrims to the bale of hay.  I don't know if I will get any mums this year or not; they never seem to last long.  They are beautiful, though.  The day after I put the pilgrims out in the yard we got 3.25" of rain in 24 hours.  Poor Grandpa pilgrim couldn't take the weather and he's doing quite the backbend now.  It's really funny.  I'll have to take a photo to post...

UPDATE:  Pilgrim Limbo

A Bit of Adventure in the Rain

We've been having quite a lot of rain here in Dallas the last few days -- glorious! We really need it. Despite not having gutters on my house yet, I was able to strategically place my two rain barrels to catch rain run off from the roof. One on my front porch, and one along my driveway. I had low expections for water collection -- I thought I'd collect maybe 4-6 inches in each barrel. HA! Boy was I ever wrong! In just one day, both barrels were over flowing! I now have 100 GALLONS of rain water stored for watering my plants. I'm giddy. (My postman may not be quite as giddy... he has to do a bit of fancy footwork to navigate around the rain barrel to get to my mail box -- and thanks to Ask.com I now know that 50 gallons of water weighs 417 pounds. No wonder I couldn't move the barrels when they filled up!)

What I am not so giddy about, however, is what happened to my 80+ year old pecan tree in my front yard. It's huge -- and laden with pecans (do you say "peh-CON" or "PEE can"? I often say "PEE can" just to make people twitch...) and apparently the combined weight of pecans and rain was too much for two particular branches. I don't know when exactly on Sunday that it came crashing down (or was it a slow arch and collapse?) but it was definitely a precarious situation in my front yard. The first branch came down when Tom gave it a good yank; the second one required a bit of manuevering.

Ladders, chain saws, ropes and friends ensued, and the end result is a heap of brush at my curb, and a half-full firewood rack. (I love my orange wheelbarrow!)When it cures by this time next year, I will have great firewood to use! I have lost a bit of shade, but I also now have gained a much larger sunny area in my yard for my upcoming butterfly garden -- but I have lost a really great branch that I had intended to hang Halloween decor from! Alas, I will need to develop a Plan B for that. And I probably need to call a professional tree trimmer to see if I need any further preventative maintenance... Hey! Another trade to call! (See previous post about trades that I haven't yet needed...)