Adventures of Fall

Despite the fact that Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and we still continue to have days with 70 degree temps, Fall is officially here. Since moving, we've already tackled lots of landscaping, poison ivy, and mosquitoes. I love this time of year, and over the past few weeks the foliage has been beautiful in our neighborhood. We were however, were in denial about how much work this yard was truly going to be. Before I post this and get a call from Jas-the yard is a lot of work for him. Growing up with all brothers, I have mowed a lawn exactly one time. I do participate in raking and shoveling, but my effort and attention span are limited.

Our neighbors are a mix of DIYers and pay someone else-ers. Never, I repeat ever, will Jason pay someone to mow our lawn, and if he had his druthers he would do all home improvements himself. In fact he sent me a link not that long ago for DIY home painting-exterior, not interior. Sorry as usual I digress...

Since the hurricane people are chopping down trees like crazy around here. Some for safety reasons, some just because people hate the clean up-I kid you not. If you remember from previous posts, my husband would have preferred even more trees, and a house in the middle of nowhere. Well this is what we got, and around here you can't let your yard go. We were told pretty early on that people are crazy about leaves around here. In fact shortly after moving in we heard that the previous owners caught some grief for their lack of leaf maintenance. Oh crap! Nearly everyone that does their own yard work around here has a riding mower with uber-baggers and leaf sweepers. We do not have either... and we have .6 acres and lots of trees. In Baltimore we had one giant oak tree, and its massive limbs dropped enough leaves to cover our entire backyard. We had a privacy fence, so raking was an as you felt like it task. No longer an option! Around here people will be out on days with 20-mile an hour winds just to try to stay ahead of the game.

The Beauty and Beasts of this time of year

Our oak-leafed hydrangea. Some of the leaves are more than a foot across. I want to go out and get more shots, but its raining. I was holding Chase when I took these and would like to get more close-ups

My mom and I raked for a bit while Chase napped the other day. I brought him outside to play in the leaves after he woke up. Hence the sleepy-looking shots...

At first he wouldn't put his hands down

Talking to the leaves

Here's the front. Obviously we still have quite a few trees that still have leaves. You can barely see the grass in the backyard!

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait till all of the leaves fell first? Granted at that point our yard would be an additional few inches high. It's rainy today, so I don't hear any leaf blowing right now-this doesn't mean a break in the weather won't bring out the die hard yardies(probably not a word, but I'm going to start using it) We need to stay in our neighbors good graces-after all we could get some snow in a few short weeks, and without a snow blower we'll need all the help we can get. Maybe I should start buttering them up with some treats:)