Putting the Garden to Bed

Come mid-October, it is time to think of beginning to prepare for winter, at least to the point of cleaning up the yard. As you are mostly aware, this has been a difficult year for Sue and me, so we dragooned the kids into giving us a hand on Friday after school. I picked them up at school, took them home to change, and then went through the drivethrough at Tim Horton's for a snack before setting them to work.

I had mowed the easement beyond the back fence earlier, and Sue had pulled some weeds and emptied the flowerpots. The biggest challenge for the kids was the Joe Pye. It took almost three bags to hold the clippings.

They would cut each stalk at the bottom and then cut it into three pieces over the wheelbarrow before transferring the pieces to the bag.

There was some cavorting, mostly by the boy, of course. He managed to dump seed and chaff into Danica's hair. In the next ↓ picture you can see him still holding the stalk that he had shaken over Danica.

After they dealt with the Joe, Hosta and lilies out back, we headed to the front where Jonathan found another Hosta to cut.

Meanwhile, Danica cleaned-up the row of daylilies with one more Hosta awaiting JJ's pruner in the foreground.

When work was done, we headed back to theirs for pizza that Shauna ordered for delivery.

The next day, yesterday, I took the five bags to the compost yard, but as I was leaving I spotted this bright, orange tree and decided it was worthy of a photo. (You can see other cars pulling into the yard. It was a busy morning.)

Later yesterday, their dad dropped by. He is able to hoist the lawnmower into the loft, if I may call the overhead shelves that. Then, he hauled our bicycles into the basement, the bikes that we didn't get out on even once, for by the time I had more or less recuperated from my trials and tribs, Sue had her surgery followed by that dratted E. coli infection. Sigh.

Our townhouse garage is tiny, but with the bikes and lawnmower out of the way, we will be able to squeeze the car into it once a few other items have been rearranged. Getting the car into the garage for winter helps to facilitate snow removal that costs us a small fortune, and it's just better overall during the winter months to get it out of the elements.