There's a cold front to the west, just crossing the mountains, & colder air is coming in behind that and Sunday will be 52/29 (first freeze of the season - bye bye garden). After Monday, it will be 40's/20's. I should mow today, but we got ¾ inch of rain in the last day & it's just too wet/muddy so I'll work on finishing my fence panels while it's warm - trying to deal with zip ties/tape in 40 degree weather might not be fun. I can always bundle up to mow.
Looking at the past week, Wednesday was the one day I had to get out & rake pine needles. Last Saturday, we had a pretty good breeze and the pine needles started coming down big time. We have giant, mature pines that are 80-90 years old and during the fall, Novemberish, they drop a lot of needles. There are 2 big garden chores in the fall …. one is getting the compost bin filled with leaves (done!) and the other is putting away enough pine needles to mulch the entire garden next spring. Than means at least 12 39-gallon trash bags. If I had to pick one project over the other, I'd pick pine needles to mulch the garden …. makes life SO much easier during growing season.
I use the mower to 'round up' the pine needles to make for less raking and I use a big old trash can as a bag holder. The spot where I store the bags needed re-doing since some more pallets had been stacked in there since last year & I didn't have enough room for stacking all the bags. That took a while & some heavy 'maneuvering', but now I have space on two good pallets for my bags & even some extra space.
It was a gorgeous day – not a cloud in the sky, cool and breezy. After 8 bags, I ran out, but got lucky and found 4 from last year that were in good enough shape to use so I did not have to stop and make a trip to the store. It was a really productive day and I'm very glad to have the pine needles ready to go next year.
Note: if you right click on the pics & select 'open image in new tab', it will show a larger picture.
Needles are thick enough to harvest after a week of coming down from the pines
Needles mowed & ready for raking
Bagging
First 6 bags in the barn; 12 bags total (2 rows) when I finished
I don't do this with pine needles, but wish I could – just gorgeous!
Carolyn Zeitler Pine Needle Basketry
Carolyn Zeitler: “I have been making round baskets for over 40 years. It is the nature of the technique that the stitching be made in a circular pattern. Lately I have been searching "beyond the boundaries" to "not" make circles but to use the same technique and make half circles, waves and hands reaching into the air. Working with copper is a delightful contrast to the texture of the pine needles; it is hard, yet soft, it can be smooth or textured, it can be hammered and cut, giving shape to a form that the pine needles can follow and emphasize. I hope you enjoy this new direction.”