Winter.

Well it feels like winter is here. It was 32 degrees this morning when I awoke. The trees have lost pretty much all of their leaves. Thanksgiving is over and December is only about 5 days away so I guess there is no point in trying to fool ourselves any longer.

I mowed the leaves, yes the leaves, a few days ago here at Lake Drive. It is quite remarkable how just mowing them seems to get rid of them. They get so broken up that most of their bulk just falls down into the grass. I am just hoping that we will have enough warm days coming that the worms will come up and drag all those little tiny pieces of leaf down under the ground.

I also mowed over at Brent House Farm which REALLY has a leaf problem! You cannot even see at least half of the lawn for leaves. As I mowed I looked more like a snow plough with huge piles of leaves being pushed in front of the mower and mowed and unmowed leaves coming out the side like snow out of a snow blower. But I mowed in a circle as much as possible starting at the outside and throwing the leaves into the middle of the circle so that that got mowed over and over again. Once again it was quite successful. When I was finished you could again see a lawn instead of just a leaf desert.

However, although at least 95% of the leaves have already fallen from the trees, there are acres and acres of leaves on the ground, which will undoubtably spread out when the wind blows and cover the lawn again.

But maybe not. We lived at Brent House Farm for 29 years, during which time I never once raked leaves! And the lawn was never leaf covered except briefly. The reason was, I think, that the lawn is surrounded by woods and when the wind blows it blows the leaves into the woods where they become trapped by the trees, bushes, fallen branches etc, and stay there. Lets hope that this happens again. We don't want prospective buyers to see leaves covering everything and thinking, "I will spend my weekends raking leaves. Let's find a place with no trees."

Anyway, I am checking the house every couple of days and if the leaves look like they are getting out of hand I'll just mow them again.

It is looking a bit like that here at Sunset Cottage so I may need to mow the leaves here one more time.

Meanwhile The lake is looking Pristine and Beautiful this morning. I sat and watched it early this morning as I sipped my coffee. As it often does it looked like a mirror. Except for one scar right across the middle caused by a small duck padding across, quite unconcerned and unknowing that he/she was producing such delight in the mind of one of natures biggest lovers and destroyers - a human!

HUMANKIND - you can be both!