Yard work is never done

We had our first hard freeze, last night. When I arose at 3am, the outside temperature was 27° Fahrenheit - and it stayed there until about 7:30am when it crept up to 28° F. By 8:30am it was 33°. The hard freeze triggered the shedding of leaves by our goodly-sized gingko tree in the front yard. As usual, I failed to get a "before" photo. I would like to have shown the carpet of leaves that lay about the tree, this morning. As it is, I can show you the carpet of leaves that is still in the foundation planting bed. The two pipes provide access to our main sewer line that joins the city sanitary sewer line under our street.

We also have two small gingko trees in the far back yard - both of which had shed their leaves within the past three or four days. I love gingkoes. They are immune to nearly everything. Bugs don't really bother them, heat doesn't bother them, cold doesn't bother them, nor does drought or an abundance of water. Another great thing about them is their habit of shedding the vast majority of their leaves, overnight, in the fall. I can get out and rake once or twice and be done with them. Something else about their shedding habits is that, as you can probably discern in the above photo, the leaves are still hydrated when they fall. Good: they don't blow as much as would dry leaves. Bad: they are darned bulky and heavy to handle when one rakes. Below is a photo of the tree as it stood when I finished raking.

Next is how the yard looked after raking. The demarcation between the raking I did before lunch (nearer the camera) and that which was done in mid-afternoon (farther from the camera) is evident. I only did the amount of raking that I thought my back could get away with. I'll do more tomorrow, perhaps.

Below are photos of the two bins and the garden cart of leaves that I raked up. (I take the small green bin out into the yard with me and dump the leaves from it into the blue bin - the blue bin holding twice as much as does the green.) Note that the bins were full, but have settled due to the weight of the leaves, and that the leaves in the garden cart are somewhat swaddled in plastic. I had tried to empty the little green bin of leaves into a huge plastic bag, only to discover the bag's state of deterioration. The least stress caused it to shred and crumble; thus, I rolled the whole mess into the garden cart. There for a moment it had seemed that I was going to end up with a large pile of leaves inside the garage. Whew!

It may seem that the only thing I do is yard work. It seems that way to me, too.  🥴 While we're on the subject: The first photo, below, shows how nicely the new grass had filled in in the back lawn, from its planting on 10/9/2021 until a week ago, with the largest previously-bare spot indicated by the red oval. The second photo shows the crusty frost that was still on the grass at 8:30am, today.

Jo-Jac's tree crew should be here, Monday, so there will be at least one more posting about yard work yet this fall.

Comments

[bogie]

That new grass is looking good!

Those ginko trees sound like good ones to have, especially the shedding all at once. I thought I was done with mowing leaves after last weekend, but failed to realize that one of the biggest maples out back had not shed yet. It did so from the rains Friday night so I went out and mowed late Saturday afternoon - before another round of heavy rain arrived last night.

[Cop Car]

There was a gingko in the cemetery that was beyond the park from your grandparents' place in KCMO that, on a birding field trip in 4th grade we were introduced by our teacher, Miss Campbell. As I recall, it didn't even approach the symmetry of our front yard tree, but was in an interesting shape - and not as tall, but probably much older. It had not been cared for to the extent that a tree within a lawn enjoys. I like to plant native trees, and gingkoes originated in China; but, as long as one sticks with male trees (and nurseries stock no females for sale) they are easy to care for.

Your dad likes to mow the leaves; but, we have so many from our own trees, in back, and so many leaves that blow in from our neighbors, in front - and we haven't had a bagging mower since shortly after moving into this house - that if I don't rake there is too much build-up. Of course, the leaves in the "far back" yard get blown into the woods and trapped, there. HH will be mowing, today, is one reason that I jumped right onto raking in front. The cottonwood, in back, has been shedding since July or August, so the leaves are thick, but not nearly like the gingko carpet.

[Joared]

New grass looking really nice -- am surprised it seems to have filled in so quickly. I think you have a bit more yard work than I would want at this point in my life, but then I wish I was able to to do any, including some hand watering -- all because of one uncooperative extremity. I never got my compost bin started but wouldn't have been able to care for it now either. Long ago I had to give up my worm bed and I could easily care for it then, but when summer heat came I just didn't have any place to keep it cool enough. So disappointing. I had it in the house as was quite satisfactory until I noted a bunch of almost microscopic creatures beginning to cover the dirt top en masse. I couldn't find out what they were and became concerned so moved the container outside on the shaded covered patio, but that wasn't good enough -- the beginning of the end.

[Cop Car]

I'm sorry about your uncooperative extremity, Joared. Sometimes we wish for more extremities (as in needing 3 hands) but I don't recall anyone's ever wishing for fewer of them.

Back in 1955-1956, I was secretary for not only our school's amateur radio club but our college town's amateur radio club. I got the giggles so badly in reading back the minutes of a meeting at which a guy had told us all about his worm farming that I could not carry on. I had come from a farm background, but had never heard of worm farming. I wonder what your little critters were?

[Joared]

I don't want to get rid of the extremity,I just want it to do its job better. For me, this has been no time to be rehabbing in a skilled nursing type setting as have no-one to come home to lessen time there should I conclude to go that route.

Those were the years when I got my FCC lifetime license so I could operate our campus radio station. I always thought it would be neat to be a ham radio operator. A friend’s father was one and I always remembered his call letters W5TIB. Husband here of a nurse I knew also a ham — his name Chuck.

[Cop Car]

Joared--I understand your not wanting to rid yourself of your extremity and join you in wishing for it to get better at doing it's job. I'm sorry that you (and many of us oldsters) lack a convenient way of getting backup that allows you to spend a minimum time in a rehab facility.

HH got his First Class commercial license at the same time he received his Amateur Extra Class license; but, I never had an interest - and he never used his. Well...come to think of it...I have the radio license required of any private pilot who uses aircraft radios - whatever it was called. It's probably out in my car, someplace. My ham license is just the General Class. I wasn't that heavily into electronics and could not have passed the test for the Extra. At this late date I have no idea on what you commercial license holders had to test.

I remember many of the calls of ham friends whom I knew in the 1950s - some of whom I never met in person, of course. It's enough for me to have met HH through a Morse Code exchange. One of the hams in the KCMO area (where my parents lived) whom my parents and I enjoyed (Dad & Mom had a radio that received shortwave) was W0OMM - "Old Mean Momma" as she called herself. She died in the 1960s of cancer. Few of the hams whom I have known survive, now, as I was so young compared to them. Your friend (and you?) probably lived in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Texas since her father had a "5" call. Now, when one moves, one takes their amateur radio call sign with them; but, I had a "7" call when we lived in the Seattle area.

BTW: No one now holds the W5TIB call sign.

[Joared]

Yes, the friend's father ham operator lived in Camden, Ark. When I got my license I don't even remember having to take a test as part of our college academic program. That was during the few years we did live in the Hot Springs, Ark. area before finally returning to Great Lakes State of Ohio.