Notes From Zone 4

The last day of October was one of the few bright clear ones we’ve had. These late fall days with nothing but oak leaves left on the trees aren’t as flashy as when the maples are burning, but the dark red-brown against the green pines is still a fine show. Lyle Handy showed up earlier

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After far too many years of neglect, we hired Lyle Handy to work on the driveway this year. He’s bringing in probably eight loads of sure-pack, and starting with the worse sections, right in the middle. The driveway is really long, about 800 feet, and we have to maintain the whole thing ourselves. Since we

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It’s not unusual to have a white turkey day, and this year, the weather for it was beautiful. Big blue skies after the storm cleared, dropping four inches on us overnight. I had time to get the decks cleared and such before the guests started to arrive for the holiday meal, which was nice. I don’t know how long I’ll keep trying to do that back deck, but I did it today, anyway. We haven’t yet had enough to be plowed. This year Frank got some orange metal stakes/pole thingies, and outlined around the driveway where we want the plow guy to plow, in the hope of saving a few of our plants that usually get beat up pretty bad. We’re pretty sure he’ll just plow right over those, though, unfortunately. But it is worth a try!

After work tonight, we walked down the driveway. I came home from a business trip this week to find that the power company contractors cleared under the power lines all down the driveway while I was gone. It used to look much more jungle like, with brush often touching the sides of the vehicles as

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I was as excited as the kids were last night, waiting for the snow to start. We were supposed to get eight to twelve inches, and the kids were hoping for a snow day, of course. We’ve had so little snow this year that the yard is barely snow covered, especially where the flock of

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It was chilly outside today, even though it looked beautiful. We decided that when cold white stuff came down from the sky, it was hail, not snow. It’s too early for snow. And it passed quickly. But I did get a bit of a start on putting in the edging where the grass meets the gravel. Something like seven down, ten thousand to go. The landscaper brought by 150 of these old cobblestones, and I think it’ll look great when it’s all done. Not sure how many I’ll be able to get in before the ground freezes, though. A bunch of wild turkeys have decided that our yard has yummy stuff in it. We’ve seen several flocks today. So cool.

Frank decided that I was too obsessed about the edges where the lawn meets the gravel, and he convinced me to focus instead on the only flower bed I hadn’t yet weeded yet this year, as it was getting away from me. So I hauled an entire trailer load full of weeds from this bed,

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I just never wanted to come inside the house today. The weather was about as perfect as I could ask for, and I hadn’t been out there weeding all week as I was out of town. I was afraid that the weeds would have taken over, and I was right to be worried! Wow, do

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We spent much of Sunday clearing for the future orchard, and found so many of these little guys. They are trillium, woods flowers, shade loving, endangered. I think they’re one of Frank’s most favorite flowers. I’m pretty fond of them myself. We have to move them, because they can’t tolerate the sun at all, and

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