No, not Camden. Dayton. Our yard. Where we have spent countless hours the past week, cleaning up and getting ready for winter. We spent lots of time outside, since our house was so cold. I was going to title this post, Heat, Glorious Heat.
When I came home today from dropping off food, cleaning supplies and clothes at the hocorising household for Mrs. hocorising to take to Jersey, I came home finally to a warm house. The heat pump is fixed. All is right in my world. Some mornings the temps on our first floor were in the 50s, and we were wearing fleece sweaters and/or vests all day. Going outside to work was better than shivering in the kitchen or family room.
So, what did we get to see outside. Mostly, since the leaves are falling, we got to see what trees were down, or coming down, since the canopy is gone and you can see the bare branches. It looks like we still have a fair amount of work to clean up the large pieces, so we don’t lose the trees we want to keep on our property line. You see, we moved out here for the privacy and between last year’s hurricane, this June’s derecho, and Superstorm Sandy, we lost quite a bit of deciduous cover.
sheared off trees of heaven
Some of our better older trees were damaged too. The derecho sheared off trees, while the hurricane uprooted them. We now need to decide what to plant to maintain our property line.
What also is amazing is how many pine cones came down. I have been collecting them for the Conservancy to use at the Natural Crafts Fair for Christmas. The first weekend in December as part of the crafts fair, they set up an area for children to make really adorable gifts using pine cones, acorns, wood, sticks and other natural items. I have a boatload of pine cones. The description from the web site. Put it on your calendar.
HC Conservancy — DEC 1 – Saturday 9 am to 3 pm Natural Holiday Sale and Crafts. Enjoy a lovely Saturday. Browse tables of natural gift items, create critters from seed pods and natural gatherings. Enjoy beautiful music with a cup of tea. Our popular holiday sale with talented local craft vendors, delicious refreshments, and nature critter crafts for the children of all ages. FREE.
Now that the ground cover is gone, and you can see the property line, you can find the old fence posts and barbed wire that delineated the horse pasture from other parts of the original farm. Our house is in the middle of what was the horse pasture. That is why our soil is so good, all that lovely horse manure churned into the soil, turning clay into something lovely.
It is interesting living here. We have fruit trees, hickory trees, berry bushes, mulberry trees, all sorts of ground covers and grasses. I love the meadow every season.
Our crab apples got many of their berries knocked off, but my neighbor’s did OK. Hopefully, that means we will have our resident cedar waxwings hanging around gorging on berries. Like they did last year. They love it here, even if it gets a little windy.
Just another fall week in West County.
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AnnieRie Unplugged 