Fallen Leaves

We had a fierce windstorm a couple of weeks ago (I think?), and it blew the leaves all around the front- and backyard. I think it stripped the ash tree in our backyard of the rest of its leaves, too, and of course we got some from the surrounding trees. I had hoped to be able to put away the lawnmower for the season, but alas! We did a bunch of errands Saturday but usually try to mix that with fun stuff. I did the yardwork Sunday. After our grocery run, I got the lawnmower out, fired it up, and set to work on crunching up the rest of the leaves. The mower has a “mulch plug” which you can install so the catcher bag isn’t needed; all I wanted to do was mulch up the leaves and cut the grass.

I got everything done, front and back, on about 1.5 battery charges (thankfully we have 3 batteries that work with the mower; those batteries also fit the leaf blower and weedeater). I used the leaf blower, speaking of that, to clean the walks in the backyard and the back porch too. All looking good. Loaded up the carved pumpkins into the yard waste can, took them to the recycling center along with some e-waste. Usually after I do yardwork, or after we’ve done our errands for the week, we get a car wash. We got a membership at a local car wash which gives us a bit of a break; basically it’s $25 USD/month for unlimited washes, and the wash we like is about $15, so if we get 2/month, it’s worthwhile. Especially with having a new car, we’re trying to keep it nice, so I think it’s worth it. Oh, and we got the sprinklers blown out for the season. Essentially, it’s exactly how it sounds: someone comes by and takes an air compressor and blows all the water out of the system so it doesn’t freeze in the winter. This is the only place I’ve lived where 1) we’ve had a sprinkler system built-in and 2) we’ve therefore needed to do that. We have a “sprinkler guy” now and he’s very friendly and affordable, so we’ll use his services to start up and shut down the sprinklers for the year from now on.

I like the liminal time in autumn where the leaves are properly falling, a transitional period where the trees show off their glorious colors before it all melts away. Again, I don’t love dealing with leaves, or the lawn, for that matter, but it’s still nice. It’s a time of dying, of ferment, but also of possibility. The deciduous trees shed their leaves and go into hibernation, plants die, but the evergreens stand watch and brace themselves for winter cold, ice, and snow. We have a pine alongside the driveway, between the two houses, and I like it, although I need to trim it back a bit as it makes it hard to open the back driver’s side door. We also have two trees in the front yard which are much younger (maybe 7-8 ft. tall). They were pretty young when we moved in, and it’s been cool seeing them grow up. I’d really like to replace the lawn with more drought-tolerant grass, but I really have no idea how to go about it. I’ll have to research that.

Autumn is in full swing, but it’s weird since the days have been in the 60s and 70s F, but the nights have been between 30s-50s F. Climate change, y’all. Seasons can’t tell what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s frustrating and annoying and really, just scary. But we’re making do with it, howsoever we can. We have it better than a lot of areas, although wildfires are always a scary thing around here. Nowhere’s perfect, I guess. But I love it here. And as my spouse said recently, “I ran into someone out and about and realized, ‘we’ve put down roots.’” I love that. I love where we live, it has been a good change and I’m glad we’re here. Florida was good while we were there, but it was a means to an end, ultimately, even though I didn’t know it. I much prefer the mountains, and snow, and seasons.

My parents will be here on Friday evening. Hoping their plane isn’t delayed by the shutdown, but who knows. I’m excited to see them. We haven’t seen them for a little over a year, so that’ll be great. And I took an extra day off on Monday so we’d have more time with them (we have Tuesday off for Veterans Day as well, when they’re leaving). Just need to get some cleaning done and such before they get here, which is no big deal since we did a lot of cleaning before my sister visited last month.

I’ve got about an hour left before I need to feed the girls. Debating what to do. I’ve been playing a lot of games lately. I started and finished Mouthwashing, which was brutal, terrifying, and bizarre, and is wholly worth playing, despite being short. It’s an Experience. I’m enjoying SOMA so far, although it is also really creepy and weird and, as friends have commented, full of existential dread. I’ve played other games by Frictional Games, such as Penumbra (though I didn’t, unfortunately, get into Amnesia: The Dark Descent like everyone says I should), so it’s familiar to me. The monster consistently stalking my character is scary and hard to avoid. I want to play more but I don’t think I will tonight. I’ve needed to take a bit of a breather from games after pouring so much time into Silksong, but I have plenty of games I don’t need to jump into wholeheartedly, y’know?

We’re at mid-week tomorrow. It was a busy start to the week but I think the rest will be pretty straightforward and calm. Then next week is a half-week, at least for us, which will be lovely.

I’ll try to write more often. I am bad at remembering to do so, and I also don’t always feel like I have much worth saying/reading. I don’t think that’s entirely true, but of course we’re always our own worst critics. I enjoy reading when y’all post your thoughts and I hope y’all get a nonzero amount out of my words, or at least like hearing about what’s going on in my life. Not too much of note lately, but that’s OK. I enjoy life and I’m trying to find joy wherever I can. A lot of that comes from people and relationships and connections; even though I am kinda halfway between intro- and extrovert, I do like spending time with people and treasure my relationships. Thanks for making everything worthwhile, friends <3