Fall cleanup

Fall is upon us out here in the Midwest, though some of my trees are all but bare, and others haven't even changed color yet. I think we're past the "peak colors" time of the year and I'm bummed that I didn't get a chance to get out there on the motorcycle to check them out.

I kept meaning to ask my neighbors who they used to blow out their sprinkler systems, but I didn't get the chance, so I just went with a random name from the phone book. I've scheduled to have my sprinkler system blown out next week, but was woken up this morning by the sounds of a heavy duty air compressor running -- my neighbors were getting their sprinkler system blown out. Oh well, maybe next year I'll use their guy.

I spent an hour or so raking leaves while Sara planted bulbs in front of my house. The only problem with raking leaves while they're still falling is by the time you're done, it doesn't look like you even started, aside from the two bags full of leaves. I knew this was going to be multi-week process, but I was hoping that I could look at a clean lawn for at least a few minutes. Maybe next year I'll get a lawn vacuum so that even if I have to go over it multiple times, it won't be nearly so much work (raking is hard on the elbow). Plus the lawn vacuums shred the leaves resulting in fewer bags that I need to take to the local compost pile (at $1 a bag).

I think I'll need to mow the lawn at least once more (and probably two or three time more), but not this weekend. I mowed it last week (because I mow it every week), but it's definitely growing more slowly now so I'm going to be lazy this week and pretend it's a good thing. I just need to make sure that it's not too tall before it snows because apparently that can cause rot in the spring as the snow melts.