Leaves

For the record, a “day”, for NaBloPoMo purposes, begins when I wake up and ends when I go to sleep. So this counts as Sunday’s entry.

I spent most of today (the parts that weren’t spent at Ellen’s, anyway) out in the back yard raking up leaves. Okay, I took plenty of breaks, and really, I only raked up what was on the brick patio. That alone came out to eight yard waste bags. I have a lot of trees.

I’ve decided that the leaves on the lawn are going to stay on the lawn. I have a mulching lawnmower, and it seems to do the trick admirably. We’ll see how the lawn turns out. I’ve got a few bald patches, and I have a feeling that my overseeding in September didn’t take. Apparently you’re supposed to water new seed. Every day. We’ll see if any comes up in the spring, but I’m not entirely hopeful.

I’ve still got lots of leaves clogging up the eaves troughs. After last year’s roof leaking adventures, I’m definitely going to get someone in to do it. I’m just a little bit too terrified of being up on ladders to do it myself. I was up there doing a little bit–clearing out where the leaves clog things up the most: at the downspouts and at the one corner. This really needs to get done properly, though.

Speaking of buying stuff, when iRobot announced their gutter-cleaning robot, [the Looj](http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=354), I was all over it, putting in a pre-order. It came in about a month ago, and I put it together and tried it out shortly after. The leaf-spewing spinny front thing works really well, spewing leaves all over the place. However, it appears that my eaves troughs are slightly too narrow. The Looj’s tank treads couldn’t get traction.

I’m planning on writing them a letter. I’m not going to ask for my money back, because I honestly think it’s a fantastic idea. I’m just sad it didn’t work out for me. So I’ll have to hire someone instead.

Overseeding

This summer’s been pretty hard on my lawn. I don’t water the damn thing, because seriously, if it can’t cope on its own, it deserves what it gets.

While I’m doing quite a bit better than most of my neighbours, the bald patches have been growing and weeds are moving in.

Since I’ve moved into the house, I’ve been researching and mulling over ideas of gardening and lawn care as essentially ecosystem management. Let’s face it, the average suburban lawn is about as unnatural as you can get. But I can make my life a lot easier by doing a kind of horticultural judo. I provide the conditions by which a nice-looking lawn-type-thing can prosper, and by which annoying non-lawn things are naturally disadvantaged.

About all I’ve been doing since I moved in has been mowing infrequently (I should do that more, albeit at the mower’s highest setting), and hand-pulling dandelions (and thistles and crab grass, but mostly dandelions). I hate dandelions.

This weekend, I put down a bit of top soil and sowed a hardier, drought-tolerant grass seed.

Apparently Labour Day weekend is a good time for overseeding, since the dew in the morning will help the seedlings without me having to water. I’m watering a little bit to get it germinating, but after this week, it’s on its own.

This is an experiment. We’ll see how it goes. I’m thinking I’ll repeat the process in the spring, although I think I need to get a bit more aggressive laying down the top soil. Even though I’m a bit loathe to do it, I think I’m going to fertilize in a month or so.

If all goes well, my lawn should be all green and wavy next year.

My poor tree

The tree in front of my house (a [Norway Maple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_Maple), I discovered today) is not a happy tree.

It had tar spots on the leaves last year, worse than the year before. Some of the bark started falling off over the winter. I noticed a woodpecker having at it in the early spring (I have pictures I should post…). Yesterday evening I noticed a whole bunch of little black caterpillars going at the wood beneath some of bark splitting wounds (again, pictures… I need to bring in a card reader). All in all, I’m pretty concerned for the health of my tree.

Norway maples aren’t native and are considered invasive further south. But it’s nice and shades the yard and front window in the summer and gives me privacy. So it’d be a shame to lose it.

It’s a foot from the road, though, so I suspected it might be a [city tree](http://www.waterloo.ca/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=363). So I called up the city this morning and they’re going to have someone come look at it. I guess we’ll see what happens from there.

Make it stop

* God, what a mess out there.
* Drove into work late this morning. We were just having a company meeting anyway, and I can do that just as easily at home.
* Of course, there’s no way I was gonna be out there walking.
* Thank god for snow tires.
* Called roof guy. I feel we’re making real progress in our relationship.
* He’s sending a guy over tomorrow. Which is okay, I suppose. The dripping’s stopped and I don’t want some guy falling to his death in my backyard. That would suck.
* I got the ladder out last night and put it up against the roof. I guess I was thinking maybe I could clear the drainpipe or something and get some of the water moving again. Something. But I took one step on the thing and my whole brain screamed out “Jesus Christ! You’re going to kill yourself!” and I stepped down and put the ladder away again.
* I hate ladders.
* My trees survived the ordeal largely unscathed.
* Likewise, my eaves troughs are still attached to the eaves. I was a bit worried.
* Work was looking pretty good up until Wednesday when it started sucking again. Luckily, I have my quarterly review in a couple hours. This could either be good or very bad.
* I need a haircut.
* Ad Astra! Woo! I have no idea when I’ll get there.
* Okay, I’ll stop now.