Day 326

 Weather will always impact what we can do on the farm. It impacts the projects and recreational opportunities. For a few weeks now, I've told myself I will winterize our yard by taking things and putting them away into barn storage for the season. Every time I get ready to get this started, the forecast changes my mind. I ran the gas out of the lawn mowers by mowing as much as I could until they died. A few weeks of warmer and sunnier than usual November days and I’m contemplating firing them up one more time. I changed the oil on our snowblower and gassed it up so it was ready to go. Three days later, we were just over seventy degrees.

Mother Nature loves to throw us curveballs. The trees and plants look the way they should, bare and brown. The animals are acting the way they should, migrating to the warmth or collecting whatever food they can find. Yet, warm temperatures and the sun going down before five in the afternoon is  an odd combination.

Soin enough, iceland snow will be covering the ground and it won't matter what time the sun comes out. However, until then, our lawn will be covered with leaves. 

When I was a kid, jumping into leaf piles made the process of raking tolerable. Less tolerable was climbing onto the roof and clearing gutters of the fallen leaves, many of which in various stages of decomposition. Mixed with shingles dust, I was clearing muck out of the gutters. Now that I am older and owner of my own property, I have chosen a different route. Unless the leaves are blocking downspouts or potentially causing more serious, pressing, or expensive issues. I leave the leaves.

I implore you to do the same.

I don't want to go into a long diatribe about the perils of the American lawn and why it is soi comical and unnecessary to me. I do  want to leave the leaves because not only do they create fertilizer for the lawn and plants on the ground, they offer refuge for certain insects crucial to the food chain and our food supply.

Leave the leaves.