Outdoor Fall Projects

Well, it is raining again today.  It must be the rainiest Sept/Oct I have experienced.  And that has exploded the mosquito population.  Even with deet on my arms and neck, they swarm around my face.  They are pretty desperate.  Probably because there are so many of them and so few victims outside in suburbia.  Really, when I was young, all kids were outside from dawn to dusk except during school.  Now, hardly a kid is outside.

And with more pets being cats, and kept indoors, less pets for the skeeters to feed on.  I am considering getting my hunting garb mosquito netting headgear out...  That may seem extreme, but when the skeeters are biting your face, its not!

I haven't been doing too much outside the past week.  The inside of the house needed a lot of cleaning and organizing.  And I have that trail-load of mulch to empty...

Project 1 - Empty the trailer of mulch.
Project 2 - Deadhead all the perennial flowers of flowerstems and hang them up for the finches to eat the seeds.
Project 3 - Deepen the drainage ditch from the patio and install real perforated drainage pipe to the downslope area.
Project 4 - Clean the patio of silt and debris.
Project 5 - Protect the patio from rain from the deck above.  My idea is to put plastic on the deck and then cover it with outdoor carpet.  I plan to rebuild the 20 year old deck in a year or two, so it is a temporary measure.  The deck has given its expected lifetime.
Project 6 - Kill the ivy that has taken over the ridge in the backyard.  Too awkward to mow, but I cant till it down and spread the soil until the ivy is all dead.  The vines wrap around the tiller tines.

THAT should keep me busy for awhile!  And I'll try for pictures...