Yard Work in Autumn

I really let this place go for the past few years. I’ll be honest – I was on strike. After living in Connecticut and Florida, where competition among neighbors for the greener lawn is a bit higher than it is here, I had enough. I really didn’t even want to look at a lawn. And I suffered because of it.

If I never told you this, I’ll tell you know now. I love to walk around the property I reside, with coffee in hand, in the morning. The earlier the better. I’ve been doing this for years and even wrote a few posts that talk about it. Take a look:

My Morning Walk

My Morning Walk To The Mailbox

The Coffee Walk

I don’t know what it is about just staring at the grass as I stroll around aimlessly. Perhaps it’s the relaxation. Or the connection. I haven’t a clue, but it sure is peaceful. It’s just that I haven’t been able to do it in a while because of the condition of the perimeter of our property. It was overgrown and wasn’t inviting at all.

This autumn, I decided to do something about the mess I created. The one that snuck up on me. I decided to get a mower, some clippers and a saw and get to work cleaning things up. As a matter of fact, I just finished all I’m going to do this year a few minutes ago. It’s all done. That is, until I begin peeking around for something to cut in the spring. For now though, I’m all tired out.

A few mornings ago, we had a nice frost. When I realized this was the case, I ran outside with my coffee and my camera. I’ll tell you, it’s quite the challenge trying to zoom in and out with a mug in one hand and a camera in the other. I had to use my chin to twist the lens. It sort of worked out okay. I did manage to get a few photos.

This is the garage and wood shed. Believe it or not, it’s around eight in the morning. The sun seems like it’s already going down. It doesn’t last long these days.

This is the side yard, looking all the way to the back near the shed. I ordered 100 more tiny pine trees to plant up and down this area. I’m getting 75 Norway Spruce and 25 Blue Spruce. They should arrive in early May, right on time for the thawed ground.

I kept walking further down the lawn where I was pointing the camera in the previous photo. This is the shed. I have dreams of tying a rope around this thing and having it lifted by a helicopter and dumped in the woods somewhere. Then, I can get a sweet garage in its place. Also, the grass that you see didn’t look like this the day before. It was all high and disgusting. I fixed that so we now have twice the lawn. What a pleasure.

I also grabbed a photo of the frost clinging to the blades of grass. Believe it or not, there were some places where it looked like it snowed. Very crisp out there.

I wasn’t planning on it, but I mowed all the high grass down behind the shed. When I say “high grass,” I mean about 4 feet high. It was more like small trees. And in fact, there were small trees mixed in. Something needed to be done.

Here I am, looking back towards the house. The bush you see on the left side of the photo is the “grass” I’m referring to. There are blackberry bushes and prickers nicely mixed in. This is the area I cut down today.

This is another view, about 50 feet from the previous. You can see all the baby pine trees I planted. There are probably about 40 in total in this area. They’re still small because they were getting smothered by weeds. Now that I set them free, I can give them a quick spritz with some fertilizer in the spring and watch then shoot up in height.

This is a young Norway Spruce. This is what I’m getting more of. Lots more. I can’t wait for them to get larger. They look spectacular in the snow.

In the woods all around the property are tons of small Balsam Fir trees with White Pines mixed in. When spring rolls around, I’m going to get in those woods with some clippers to cut all the deciduous trees. This should give more light to the pines so they can grow a lot better.

Finally, I made it all the way around to the back of the garage. Man, it’s nice this time of year. I always said that November is my favorite time of year with December a close second. It’s just perfect weather to get outside for some yard work.