I have so many hoses. They’re the best hoses. Except the ones that have been cut by lawn mower blades. And the ones that had their metal bits crushed to an oval under car tires. One of the problems of owning a large property is that watering isn’t so easy. I don’t have an irrigation system, I just have these hoses. Connect three or four together and I can reach some distance out to my lawn. Not the whole lawn, of course. The hoses can reach the garden but we only water that for a few weeks until the weeds crowd out whatever seeds we planted. The squash are in the far corner, we think.
When fall turns to winter, the hoses have to be put away. Disconnected from their spigots, drained of their water, and wound in a hoop. I should put that hoop in my shed, but my shed is only half sided, because it’s a four year project and I still have a few months left. So I put the hoses on the ground near the tiller attachment for my tractor, on a path of gravel I made with with the tractor, some time ago. I planted fifty or so small evergreen trees on my property last November, and I’m pleased to report that all but one is still living. The one that isn’t living died in a fire when I burned off the remnants of last year’s weed garden to make way for this year’s weed garden. It was a good tree, but it wasn’t fire hardy as I had hoped.
The other trees need tending to, so my daughter and I drove our slow Gator down the road to the corner where they sell bales of straw. Straw and hay are different things, or so the sign said. We loaded four bales, two for my wife’s chickens, and two for the trees. We drove around the property, finding the small evergreens that had been covered in the weeds that I call flowers, and placed some straw around the tiny trunks of these tiny trees. I don’t know why I do this. In my mind, it’ll help the trees last the winter. I have not googled this, nor do I plan to. I believe it’ll help, and so it must. We put the straw around the trees and we put the chicken straw in the unfinished shed.
Then we had some hydrangeas with roots exposed. This is not an acceptable condition heading into winter, so I shoveled mulch up and around these hydrangeas, to protect the roots from the coming cold. I scraped shovel fulls of gravel from the gravel pile into the Gator, and from the Gator into the potholes that had formed during the fall rains. I fill the holes now so the gravel freezes, and the bumps go away for a few months, until they return with an unholy vengeance next spring. Gravel driveways are fine in the summer. Fine in the winter. Pretty terrible during the transitions. The potholes filled, I pulled the outdoor furniture cushions and brought them to the basement. While down there, two furnaces needed new filters, and that’s exactly what I gave them.
The day before I had chopped wood and reaffirmed the strength of my porch-stack, but in doing so I dropped bits of bark and dirt all over the stoop. The blower had a sip of 2017 gas left, so I blew off the patios and the drive, cleaning as best I could before the rain and the cold. The bird feeders needed filling, a nice generous top off of the large and varied feeders that grace the backside of my house. I like the winter Bluejays, even though the other birds don’t. My wife prefers the subtlety of the female cardinal. There were three pumpkins on the back steps, molding and sagging and sad. I threw them into the weed garden, where they exploded with a soft pop. Something will eat that, I figured. I felt good for taking such good care of the animals.
The work done, I surveyed the property one last time. The firewood stack was strong, but it’ll need adding to over this month. The driveway and patio, clean as a whistle. The hoses, disconnected, drained, and wound. The lawn mower tucked inside the shed. Two bails of hay, waiting for the chickens. The driveway holes patched, for now. The lawn, mowed in its winter stripes. The tiny trees, tucked into their straw beds, that may or may not help. Some people complain about the work of owning real estate. The work of preparing for a harsh change in seasons, much like preparing for a violent intruder to break through your city gate. I relish the work. I enjoy the preparation. There’s nothing uniquely hard about it, and now I feel content in knowing I’ve prepared my house, and my family, for what comes next.