After some bitterly cold days (-20 below) things are looking up! When temps hit 20+ in these parts, people flocked to enjoy the great outdoors. I’ve managed to grab the loppers and head for trees needing a trim. I also have some shrubs that have grown out of control – they’ll be reduced as well and they’ll love it! That’s what I love about this time of the year, it allows me to cleanup shrubs and trees so that when spring hits, they’ll come out of their sleep revived. (BTW don’t prune any spring bloomers, unless you don’t care if you miss this year’s blooms). Days are slowly getting longer, I can see it with my houseplants – they are waking and ready to stretch their limbs. Repotting is right around the corner as is feeding. I’m too combing catalogues trying to pick some new plants to add to my garden. Stay tuned. I guess I should start assembling my seed starting unit. I will be trying jump start the season within the next 4 weeks.

Warming up today! Sunny and 12 degrees this morning – should warm up to a toasty 25 degrees! Will finish tying up arborvitae I didn’t get to before the snowstorm. And wrapping the rest of the Dwarf Alberta Spruce – if I can find them!

Well the winter season is here! Huge storm dumped 12 inches of snow. The blowing winds dropped wind chills to -12 degrees while daytime temperatures remained in the single digits. I’m happy to announce that my leaves are NOT going anywhere!

Down to 160 bags. I’ve managed to hurl, drag, carry, and drive 100 bags of leaves to scatter on top of my vegetable garden. I opened and spread about 100 bags over the soil – please winds, stay calm!

The dumping begins! Leaves everywhere! I have been double-digging my small, raised quadrant gardens. These beds never had it so good. 40 bags down – 260 to go!

No more leaves

My husband just might kill me! A local youth volunteer group contacted me about where they could dispose of leaves they raked from the lawns of senior citizens. I begged them to drop the bags at my house. Little did I know what I asked for. By the end of the afternoon nearly 300 HUGE bags stuffed with leaves littered my driveway. I hope my husband is here tomorrow!!

I love the fall season and I love days like today. The winds helped trees shed their bones of their leaves. As if storm clouds grew overhead, the gusting winds created a rainstorm of leaves. All of them at once danced through the sky – for a brief moment visibility was reduced. Not enough people take time to really stop and watch Mother Nature’s fall finale. It is a bittersweet show however because I know when the show it over…it’s time to get to work again.

I’ve never been a squash person. My family never grew or ate squash…but once I tasted its sweet, nutty meat, I knew it would become a favorite. I love most is the soups I’ve been able to concoct. And butternut squash is so easy to grow. This year I planted it below my corn and allowed the vines to sprawl under the stalks. It helped keep weeds away – but made walking the rows a bit precarious. And I wasn’t sure what kind of crop I would get, as the vines were hard to see in the corn. However, once the corn was harvested, and the frost nipped the vines – there they were – buttery, yellow pear shaped rinds of the vegetable. So today and tomorrow I’ll be busy whipping up soup to freeze for the winter!