Back to the Rake

Once upon a time, my husband (MH) and I bought a house in suburban New Jersey. He was going to take care of the lawn, I was going to take care of the flowers.

Over the years I learned about what plants deer will destroy and the importance of fencing. He learned you had to do the first mowing before the ground ivy got too thick and bloomed.

What deer can do to a canna, even in a cage.
(Margo D. Beller)

But then a strange thing happened: We got older. Now we watch how we walk to avoid falling and hold onto the staircase railing going up or down stairs. Now, despite my exercising, I must warm up before lifting heavy items such as the canna pots I have in a cage to protect them from deer. MH realized his knees had gotten so bad he could no longer do the mowing (though he'll still walk around with the seed spreader twice a year). I found I couldn't help him with the mowing either due to various ailments.

So we had to do like our younger neighbors and hire someone to do the lawn work. (Other chores we hire out now are gutter cleaning, house washing and shoveling the driveway after a snow storm.) However, unlike our neighbors we wanted someone to come only when we asked because I did not want a weekly bill for mowing dirt in the middle of summer. 

So first we used "a guy" we were recommended who did lawn work on the side from his regular job. Then he recommended "another guy" to replace him after two years. Then the "other guy" went on disability from his regular job. Last year I called a new, small service I'd seen around the neighborhood and got exactly what I didn't want - someone coming every week. Worse, we had to be home to pay in cash.

MH mowing the ground ivy in 2017
(Margo D. Beller)

This year, I called a local service that has done business in my town for years - as it happens it is the same company that plows us in winter - and the owner was OK with coming only when I called.

That took care of this year's mowing. Now it was time to take on the falling leaves and, worse, black locust pods. I've written a lot over the years here about the "joy" of raking pods and leaves. MH and I used to do it, but, again, we got older and lifting that heavily laden tarp became extremely difficult.

So as I saw this year's leaves pile up in the back and the pods drop in the front I was enjoying the idea of doing nothing thanks to the service.

Wrong.

It wasn't their fault. The two guys who came created quite a leaf pile for our town's public works guys to remove. MH and I had gone to lunch as they were starting the job. When we came back they were gone but there were a lot of pods on the lawn. Had they not done the front yard?

Well, yes they had. There were pods in the leaf pile, I saw. But I did not want to see pods when I had expected a green lawn. So, back to the rake.

I remembered I enjoyed going out early in the morning and using my quiet rake to pull pods towards me and push them down to the curb. I enjoyed listening to the birds and the satisfied feeling of a job well done. And so, for the millionth time, as I raked I cursed out the person on my town's shade tree commission who thought planting black locusts along my street was a good idea.

[There are male and female trees. The females have the pods. I am lucky that my property has three male and the one female. Other neighbors on this street have more female trees, and so more pods.]

I was making good progress even as the wind blew some of the piled leaves back on the lawn and more pods fell from the tree, mocking my effort. I realized these pods I was now raking had fallen between the time the lawn service left and we returned home. I expect tomorrow the lawn will look like I'd never gone outside. 

This year's leaf pile. Note the pods already on the lawn since
I raked. (Margo D. Beller)

Mind you, this female locust tree lost a big hunk during this year's July 4 windstorm, bringing down a ton of green pods. But the tree's remaining branches made more. [At least my tree didn't take out power lines, like one of my neighbor's trees, which put us in the dark for three days and destroyed a car parked on the other side of the street.]

Maybe I focus too much on getting the pods off the lawn. But at least I can still wield a rake when I must.

Colors in My Yard

I was admiring the increasing red in the dogwood's leaves after putting out the seed and suet feeders for the chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches and other birds one recent cold morning. Like the other trees in my front and back yards, at this time of year the dogwood's flowers and fruits are long gone, so the tree is moving energy down to its roots for the winter. 

Viburnum berries (Margo D. Beller)

As the chlorophyll that makes the leaves green shifts, the leaves are going red. The same thing is happening with my azaleas, the red maple and the red oak. Meanwhile, the elms are going yellow while the white oak leaves are shifting to gold and then brown.

The viburnum leaves are green but the plant is covered in red berries. Maybe the birds are waiting for the fruit to be sweetened by frost. The old apple tree has already lost its leaves but the nearby cherry leaves, like those of the locusts in the front, have turned a brownish yellow.

The elm is taller than the oak, whose branches I
must look through to see the yellow leaves at the top.
(Margo D. Beller)

The blue spruce, however, is an evergreen and so does not change color. I wish it good morning as the wind blows more leaves from the trees to the lawn and I hear the sound of distant leaf blowers. "I'm glad you hosed the plants the other day," Spruce said. "I was starting to get rather thirsty."

As I write we're in our second week of clear, autumnal weather - cold to start, then warming quickly because there are no clouds blocking the sun. It is also very dry. If this weather was during high summer we'd hear about drought warnings daily. But now most plants are finished growing so the concern doesn't seem to be as dire - at least not yet. 

Still, the soil gets dry. I haven't had the sprinkler turned off yet so the lawn gets watered every so often. With all the plants I've already cut back I'm not as good about using the hose on them, but I do occasionally. I keep hoping we'll get some rain, but that's not forecast for anytime soon.

At some point the lawn service we now use will deal with the leaves and the blasted locust pods. For now, it is a treat to walk around the yard and take in all the colors still in the trees.

The reddening dogwood leaves (Margo D. Beller)

At this time of year the ornamental grasses bloom. Later,
under the right conditions, the leaves will go gold.
(Margo D. Beller)

Spruce in his unchanging finery
(Margo D. Beller)

Coming to a Feeder Near Me

Things have changed a great deal since I last wrote.

The heat and humidity seemed to disappear once my husband (MH) and I returned from a mid-September trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York. Suddenly it was cooler, leaves were starting to turn color and the number of migrating birds was increasing to the point where I put aside my qualms about being bitten by hungry mosquitoes, flies and other insects to go out into the field.

Labor Day. Feeder photographed from inside my enclosed porch.
(Margo D. Beller)

And, I put up the house feeder. In the past I have put it up on Labor Day but this year on that day it was still warmer than I would've liked. Still, I wanted to see what would come for a sunflower seed.

It took only a couple of days before the first white-breasted nuthatches appeared, a male and a female. At this time of year I can't really call them a mated pair because we were past the time when there would be a nest full of young to feed. Except for mating season male nuthatches are quick to chase away any other nuthatches from the feeder, and this was no exception. The male would be on one side, the female on the other. Both took a seed and flew in different directions to find a place where it could pound the seed open.

After the nuthatches came tufted titmice, anywhere from two to four. These backyard birds call to each other. The titmice and the nuthatches were the first to return after we came back from our trip and I went back to putting the feeder out.

Soon after these birds were joined by a black-capped chickadee or two. Then the cardinals I've heard at dawn came by. Lately the feeder has hosted a redbellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, jays, house sparrows, house finches and the occasional goldfinch. Mourning doves and the squirrels stay beneath the feeder to pick up what is dropped.

Fall birding is very different from spring birding. In spring the trees have barely leafed out and what migrants show up are in bright breeding colors and singing warning songs while finding food or setting territories to breed. In fall the trees are fully leafed out. The birds have no need for bright colors to attract a mate or singing to defend territory. The chips, tiks and other little sounds I may or may not be hearing through my tinnitus all sound the same to me, presuming I can even hear them.

In fall I am more dependent on my Merlin app hearing what I can't, identifying what I can't or confirming what I can. But another fall challenge is the later daylight - 7 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time currently is around when the sun rises. Those days when I could rise at 5 and be in the field at 6 before rush hour traffic are long gone. Now I have to make my way around school buses and more cars with the kids or going to work.

White-breasted nuthatch. The black on the top of the head
shows this is a male. The female has gray on her head. (Margo D. Beller)

And the bugs are still around. I wear gloves, I turn up my collar and I wear a head covering but the bugs find my face and neck rather appealing, particularly when I stop to look up at a tree to see any slight movement that could be a bird. The Deet, I discovered, did not deter the pests (it is probably too old) but it made me smell bad.

As I write we're having one of those "taste of fall" days when the high temperature didn't make it to 60 degrees F. There are more overnight temperatures in the 40s. Soon they will be in the 30s. Unlike MH's NH family we have yet to have our first frost but I've already brought my porch plants inside - checking them for insects first - and will soon have to put the baffle on the other feeder pole and put out more seed and suet. 

Migration will end soon. The leaf blowers have already been noisily out in force. I cut back the last spent plants in my garden and soon the canna pots will be brought inside. I'm already seeing myself dividing plants and turning compost next spring. 

I hope the garden survives winter. I hope the same for myself.