Fall Is Here At The Bamboo Lagoon

Landing and rocks before

Just got back from a short trip to the midwest to see much loved family and had to buckle down the today to get some yardwork knocked out. Fall is here again and if it is anything like last year was, it will be a ton of work. Getting any of it taken care of before it piles up is the way to go.

We needed to fill up the yard bin and there was just enough pinestraw on the solar panels and landing to do the job.

Solar panels and roof before

Had to bring out the ladder and climb up on to the deck cover with a deck broom to get the pinestraw off. The broom only reaches about half way across the solar panels so I did what I could from that end, and then moved the ladder to another location so I could climb up onto the house roof itself. I took up a bucket with some gloves since it seemed logical while up there to clean the gutters as well.

Landing and rocks after

Rolled the pinestraw off the roof since there was a lot on the ground that needed to be dealt with anyhow and headed down. Cleaned up three trashcans full of needles, and then moved on to the sideyard stairs.

The stairs are under an oak tree that has started dropping acorns and a few leaves. I wanted to get the stairs cleaned up of acorns because they make the stairs kind of scary. This

Solar panels and roof after

only took a bit of raking and ended up being two 5 gallon buckets full to top off the yardwaste bins.

Felt good to knock out some tasks on the first full day of Autumn this year.

Leaf Net Trial Season

With the net on

Last year, the leaf drop from all the trees planted near the pool was pretty massive. Even with my preventative trimming to limit the amount that branches reach over the deck, there was still a lot that was carried on the wind. At one point, there were so many oak leaves on the pool, the leaves came up to the edge of the deck. It took me almost two hours to skim them all off.

This year, I decided to see if a leaf net would be a better option (at least for keeping the leaves from dropping to the bottom of the pool). I got it on sale and in the mail a few days before my annual trip to the midwest this year and decided to put it over the pool before leaving just in case the leaf drop came early.

It covers the pool pretty well, but pretty much used up every bungee strap we own...LOL. The other option was to buy the water weights but those are expensive and I am only trying this out and want to try to do it as inexpensively as possible.

Tree Trimming

Pile before breakdown

I noticed when I went out the back door the other day that we had a lot of dead lower branches hanging down and with it being fire season and all, I thought it might be wise to trim them up some.

So I broke out our extended tree saw/trimmer and got to work. Pulled down quite a few branches and dragged them down to the driveway to breakdown for the yardwaste container. Raked and cleaned up the area underneath the trees.

The next day, I worked on breaking all the small branches off and then got the Sawsall with a pruning blade on it and went to town....gosh I love power tools! The bigger pieces that I cut up with the Sawsall, I decided to keep for firewood. So I put them in a tote.

All cleaned up

The yardwaste bin is almost full with the branches and the pinestraw...and we still have a week to go before the pickup...I'll just have to fill up other trashcans we have until it gets emptied.

On another note, the plum trees are doing much better now that they dropped most of their plums...now I just need to gather a few up along with some acorns for the FIL. He wants to try to plant them on his 40 acres and see if they can grow. I might see if I have some starts for him too.