Trees
The past week or so we've heard the first acorns drop from the trees, bounce off the roof, and land on the deck. It's a sure sign that summer is nearing the end and fall is right around the corner. And with fall, leaves.
Last year was unusual because the majority of leaves fell remarkably late. Our trash company comes by twice each fall and vacuums up any leaves that we rake to the curb. Because the leaves fell so late, we barely had any for them to collect both times they came by. I assumed they would make a third pass at some point, so I raked the leaves to the curb once they finally fell. As the days went by with no sign of a leaf-vacuum truck, I started to question my assumption. So I called to find out what their plans were, and they said they would not make a third pass, but they were still accepting bagged leaves as part of normal trash pick up for a few more weeks.
Being rule followers, Wendy and I spent an entire day bagging leaves. It was a lot of work. When we finished, we had 27 bags of leaves sitting by the curb! Trash day came and thankfully they took them all. However, the next week the trash company sent a brief, strongly-worded statement to our subdivision stating there was a limit of 8 bags of leaves per household! Well, at least our leaves were gone!
As it turned out, we didn't need to bag the leaves. Enough people in the county complained about the leaves that our township rented a leaf-vacuum truck(!), and made a pass through all the township roads. I think they visited our neighborhood sometime in late December, but I don't recall for sure. Anyway, it was rather frustrating that our bagging effort wasn't necessary!
It will be interesting to see what transpires this year with the leaves.
Trail Cam
I can't believe it was only last year that I bought my trail cam. It feels like I've had it for years. Perhaps that's a sign of how ingrained in my daily life it's become. For example, there have been many evenings in the last year and a half, where we think we hear something outside (or smell something, in the case of a skunk!), or our cats are looking out the basement window with great interest, and we take note of the time, so that when I check the trail cam the next morning, we can see if there was an animal in the backyard at that moment.
Well, not a single time has it ever happened that I found a video of an animal at that moment. Not once, until this week!
Thursday evening the weather was very pleasant, so we had all the doors and windows open. Shortly before 11pm, we heard our neighbor's dogs start barking, and keep barking for a while. The neighbors came out and yelled at the dogs to stop. Wendy looked up at the clock and said "It's 10:55pm. We should remember that to see if their dogs are barking at an animal on the trail cam." That was a good point; it hadn't occurred to me.
And sure enough, she was right. The next morning I checked, and at 10:51pm there was this video of a coyote running through our yard. Mystery solved!