TheBanyanTree: Ready for Winter

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Ever since the Halloween blizzard of 1991 when I wasn’t ready for winter and
was taken totally by surprise, I’ve made a point of being ready for winter
before Halloween.

The Saturday before Halloween is my target date to “get ready for winter.”
I watch the weather carefully during the week and hope that this Saturday
isn’t going to be rainy.  I can handle cold, because all that means is that
I have to wear a warmer jacket and some gloves, but a cold rain isn’t fun at
all.  Nothing is worse than being wet and cold.

But, this Saturday was cool and cloudy.  After the prolonged Indian summer
we’ve had, it was almost like the abrupt transition in the weather was
telling us to get our butts moving and think about the upcoming winter.  All
the long range forecasts were saying this winter was going to be average,
which in light of the exceptionally mild winters we’ve had the last few
years, means this winter will seem harsh and unbearable.

The thick gray clouds rolled in after breakfast.  The wind picked up a bit,
too, but it wasn’t going to stop us from raking the leaves.

First, I gathered all the lawn furniture and summer decorations from our two
decks, the patio, and the gardens.  I stacked the lawn furniture outside of
the garage, hoping Ray would find a space to squeeze the furniture in.  Our
double garage is jam packed with STUFF and JUNK, but that’s another story.

I took all the flower pots, which still had beautiful flowers blooming, the
red and yellow salvia, the bright impatiens, and there was a delicate white
begonia, too, and dumped them out in our pile of yard waste behind the
garage.  It broke my heart to do that, but we’re supposed to get colder this
week and they would have died soon anyway.  We had only one hard freeze this
fall and that wasn’t enough to kill all the flowers.

Then I brought out the winter bird feeders.  I only keep two feeders going
in the summer, but the birds (and squirrels and deer and mice and moles)
need reinforcements in the winter, so I add a few more.  We bought a new
tube feeder and it quickly became a hit with the fast fading into brown gold
finches.

The summer stuff was out of our way, so Ray and I began raking the leaves.
We have eight full grown oak trees and a couple of other trees in our small
backyard.  Most of the leaves have fallen, although the oaks will hang onto
a lot of their leaves through the winter.  The ground was carpeted with red
and brown and yellow very dry leaves.

Ray and I had our usual annual debate about whether we should roll the
leaves onto the garden beds OR roll them onto the garden beds, but also bag
and haul the excess to the compost.  Rolling ALL the leaves onto the garden
beds won with a unanimous vote, so that’s what we did.  That means a lot of
work in the spring, because the leaves will be wet and heavy, plus we’ll be
raking the leaves that wintered over from the oaks.  But as the clouds got
darker and the air got cooler, we opted for the easy way out.

It seemed like it was no time before the backyard was bare, stripped of its
summer finery, and was in its winter mode with bird feeders scattered around
and heaping piles of leaves on the gardens.  The last job was to put the
hoses in the garage.

The birds must have felt the air changing, too, because they were clustered
at the feeders the minute we stopped working.  I haven’t seen such a variety
of birds at the feeders at one time since spring.  I saw cardinals, blue
jays, juncos, chickadees, finches, and sparrows.

We ate lunch.  We took afternoon naps and woke up as it was getting dark.
We ordered pizza and watched the Marlins beat New York.  I made pumpkin
spice bars and the scent of pumpkin drifted through the house.

After the game, I slipped into bed, snuggling between the warm flannel
sheets.  I’m ready for winter.  Bring it on!

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.skywaybpw.org
Skyway Business and Professional Women
Working women connecting.

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything
else.

Sir Winston Churchill