Storing Items for Winter

Just three weeks ago it was 90+ degrees and now we are looking at a hard frost any day. In an attempt to stay ahead of the cold weather we have been slowly putting away items for the winter.

Today we stored the garden hoses except for one short section. With our yard being large and the fact that we have flower and shrub beds encircling most of the perimeter requires us to use a lot of length of garden hose. When it comes time to put all that garden hose in storage it's a real chore. In the past we have put it off until cold weather. This makes it a real pain because the garden hose is stiff and doesn't want to coil neatly and more important who wants to deal with cold water when it's 38 degrees outside.

So today with the sun shining and the black asphalt warm we laid out the garden hoses to drain and warm up. Once the remaining water was drained and then blown out of the hose (R has enough lung capacity to do the job) we coiled the garden hose in manageable lengths and wrapped a piece of duct tape around it to keep the hose from uncoiling.

We then worked on the rocks around the roses by the driveway. We have that project complete except for a 2 foot section. We are lacking in the correct size rocks to finish the project. Tomorrow I will scour the yard for rocks and stones and hopefully that project can then be removed from the list.Today I also bought the remaining paint needed for my chain link project but I doubt if I will be able to finish it unless the weather warms up. The reason I bought the paint today was that it is on rebate at Ace Hardware this month for $5.00 off each gallon. If I wait until spring the price will probably increase and there will not be a rebate.

R might be done with his asphalt repairs for the year. He needed another pail of the trowel able patching compound but Home Depot says they have put it away for the year. R says he's going to try another Home Depot AND if that doesn't pan out....he'll try Lowe's.The ash and walnut trees have already lost all their leaves so we decided to use the leaf blower to remove the majority of leaf debris from the rocks in front of the house. I have also cut back most of my perennials so that spring clean up will go faster and I have less chance of breaking a young plant in the spring.

The cement bird baths will need draining but that is a job for R and G. My days of lifting and turning over a 50+ pound bird bath top are long gone. Next year they are due for fresh paint which I will do before the tops are flipped back over.

Tomorrow's agenda is buy a large plantation gold maple for the side yard where we cut down a dead ash tree. I am hoping that the yellow/gold leaves will contrast nicely with the dark gray paint on the body of the house.

After the tree planting we will need to mow the entire yard. I might lower the deck a notch since the lawn seems to be growing at hyper speed right now. Plus we need to harvest the remaining pears.Sunday's agenda is to work on the sun room doors and maybe start cutting down the jambs so that they can be trimmed out correctly like we did on the front of the sun room. So many things to do and quickly becoming so little time left before it snows.