We may have had our last gorgeous fall day if the weather people are correct. Today’s highs were above 70 degrees, and the weekend was still sunny enough to spend some time outdoors compared to what is in the forecast for the coming few days. In fact, we might even be seeing some snow this week!

Wyatt and I have been super busy working on the flooring project, which is going well overall, but taking a long time (as most projects, do, right?) so we haven’t been staying caught up on our fall outdoor chores. Our neighbors have been raking and bagging and mowing leaves for several weeks now. Plus, the garden was looking a little…sad. And by sad, I mean dead.

But Sunday after going to early church, we were able to squeeze a couple hours of yard work into our busy day.

Wyatt started by raking up a bunch of the walnuts along the back of our yard. He doesn’t like to mow over them and since he needs to probably mow one more time before winter, he wanted to get them cleaned up. Then, he worked on tackling the leaves in the front yard. Unfortunately, our big front tree has only lost a few of its leaves, so we know we’ll have more raking to do, but this was a good start I guess.

After 2 trips with the wheelbarrow, he decided he could be a lot more efficient with a bigger “wheelbarrow.” So, he hooked up the trailer to the CRV and hauled at least 3 big trailer loads of leaves to our back fence line where we dropped them in our compost pile.

Meanwhile, I got to work clearing out the garden. I couldn’t really believe how late our first frost was this year (October 31) so we had some garden goodness right up until the start of November. But everything is totally dead now, so it was time to get it cleaned out.

It’s always good to get rid of the previous year’s garden debris to help prevent the overwintering of any pests or diseases. Dead plant matter is a great place for fungal spores and other problems to linger in the garden over the winter, which will then infect your new plants in the spring. Not good!

I also tilled the soil just a bit to help expose any insects that might have been burrowed into the dirt hoping to hibernate until warmer weather. It’s not a fool-proof plan, but I think it helps. Of course, some things stay over the winter, like the strawberries.

Things are looking much more winterized out there now.

We also took down the bird barrier to keep it from collecting any ice or snow over the winter and then ripping or breaking. We’ll install it again in the spring.

Then, we headed off to celebrate a sweet little girl’s 2nd birthday. (And then we had a meeting at church and a bible study. I told you…it was a busy day.)

By the time we got home Sunday night, we were too tired to tackle any more flooring, but I have high hopes we’ll be done this week so stay tuned for more on that. But just take my word for it…it’s looking awesome!

And yes, we know we’ll have tons more leaves to rake up by the end of the year, but I figure everyone we get this fall is one less we’ll have to clear out in the spring, right? Right? RIGHT?

We also did a little work on the deck, cleaning out flower pots and such.

How did you spend perhaps the last “nice weekend of fall” We’ll probably have some scattered warm days in the next few months, but it felt good to get some outdoor stuff done before it got really cold.