armlessbear.com

Last fall we were inattentive lawn people. No grass was mowed, no leaves were raked in the back. The warm weather of the last few days melted snow exposing our laziness to the naked eye. Soggy, icy leaves covered a significant portion of our backyard. I googled around a bit and discovered that with each passing day we were murdering our lawn. Smothering it, inviting burrowing pests, encouraging moss. Oh, the horror, the shame of it all!

Today I spent 2.5 hours in the back yard cleaning up our mess.
I filled 2 old garbage cans and our compost bin with leaves and there are still more leaves that need to find a home. The 2 densely packed garbage cans are for composting later in the season when good carbon sources are scarce.
There is still plenty more to do in the backyard, including – digging up the entire garden – cleaning up all the sticks and branches that were missed by our tree guy or buried under the snow from last year.

If I didn’t have half my daytime hours tomorrow filled up with activities, I could surely spend another 5 hours outside just doing more yard work.
It was refreshing and exhilarating to be outside in the warm sun today. I don’t know what the temperature was around noon, but it was warm enough in the back yard to warrant taking my sweatshirt off and raking in a mere t-shirt and jeans. Sure, this March isn’t nearly as warm as last March and I doubt we’ll see 60 degrees before April, but any semblance of warmth is a welcome change from the past few months.