Mid-South Gardening: Spooky Oct. is here!!!, 1 by marsue

marsue wrote:
Whoo! I am behind again! I don't know how I manage to get so far behind but we have spent a lot of time outside lately cutting and stacking wood for the fireplace. Al has cut down 3 trees this summer, two of which were already dead, and the storm in August blew one big oak tree over. We discovered that although it wasn't dead yet, it was starting to rot from the inside out. So we have had four trees to cut up, split and stack. Of course, Al does the cutting with chain saw but I help him with the splitter. He has a gas-operated hydraulic wood splitter and I operate it while he moves the logs around. We both do the stacking after we get a pile of wood split.

As far as clutter is concerned, Al is a champion hoarder. Not in the house, but in his "man cave" and in the two outbuildings that we have. I think the man has three of every kind of tool there is! LOL (His sister tells me it is because they grew up poor.) There is a detached garage with a lean-to on it which is about 50 feet behind the house. He uses it for all his tools plus for his re-loading equipment for shotgun shells. I rarely go in there. LOL It is just as well that I stay out of there. :D Then we have a smaller storage building which was full of "stuff". I convinced him about a month ago to go in there with me and clean it out, which we did. It was amazing the stuff that was thrown away or taken to the recycle center. The rest of it we organized like hanging extension cords on hooks and other stuff we stacked neatly on shelves instead of having it all just piled up. We can get in there now without tripping over anything!

Last year when I married Al, it took me a full month of working almost every day during each week to get the house organized. I went through every drawer, every closet and every cabinet, room by room. It was unbelievable the big black plastic bags of stuff that went out of here. We donated most of it and some was thrown away or taken to the recycle center. A lot of those plastic bags were full of clothes that belonged to the late Mrs. Piche'. She had a ton of clothes--far more than I do. I don't think either Al or the other Marilyn (her name, too) really knew what all they had because they couldn't find anything when they looked for it. Anyway, it felt so good to have things organized and to know what was put where.

Genna, once you get everything organized, it will be a lot easier to keep it that way. You just have to start with one room at a time so you won't feel overwhelmed.

I have all the EE's put away for the winter. The only EE I left in the ground was the Big Dipper. I have it well mulched so I hope it will come back. It always came back for me when I was in Cabot but I realize that was in zone 7 and I am in Zone 6b up here. I also have dug all the caladium bulbs and dried them out and put in paper sacks for storage through the winter.

Elaine: glad to hear that Earl is doing well.

Jeri, I am so sorry about your friend's son. It is such a shame that he was so close to help and just couldn't bring himself to ask for it.

Well, I need to get back outside while the weather is pretty. It is cool today but the sun is shining so I need to get back out there and rake up some pine needles out of the yard to put in the flower beds.

Most of ya'll have probably seen this photo on Facebook but I will post it here for those of you who don't make it over to FB.
This is Al in front of some of the wood we have cut, split and stacked so far. There is more waiting to be done. The log splitter is to the left in the photo.