Frost happens.

"If you can’t bear to leave them where they are, get the kids to kick them into a corner, stick them in a pile, let the hedgehogs and earthworms use them."

From "Should you sweep up leaves? Gardeners say no — here’s why/Experts say leaving fallen leaves in your garden could be the simplest act of conservation by providing food for worms and shelter for hedgehogs" (London Times).

By "sweep," I think they just mean rake. When we Americans say "sweep," we picture a broom.

Speaking of brooms.... have you ever heard of "The Broom of Destruction"? Here, it's in Isaiah 14:22-23:

‘I will rise up against them,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘I will wipe out Babylon’s name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland; I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,’ declares the Lord Almighty.

"Leaves have fallen for millions of years, so of course plants and animals have come to expect or even rely on them to complete their life cycles."

"It’s our job as ecological gardeners to figure out how to incorporate these natural processes into our landscapes in ways that are both functional and beautiful."

Said Rebecca McMackin, the lead horticulturist for the American Horticultural Society, quoted in "Why Leaving the Leaves Is Better for Your Yard/Keeping leaves in your yard can bolster the number and variety of species around — and the perks go beyond just the fall season" (NYT).

Bluestem.

There's a reason why we have so many lawn mowers.

In the profusely watered backyard....

... you can write about whatever you want.

"I heard somewhere that people in the middle class pay for things they used to do personally and personally do the things they used to pay for."

"The example, I think, was that people used to pay travel agents to book trips and mowed the lawn themselves. Now, they pay someone to mow their lawn and book travel themselves. Hiring people to do things in your house that you don’t want to do is its own luxury.... Still, the more our society monetizes every aspect of life, to include the empty seats in our cars and the empty beds in our houses, the more necessary it is to undertake work for the pleasure and dignity of the work itself. Our only relationship to work cannot be as a cog in a financial machine."

Writes Theodore R. Johnson, in "Why mowing the lawn is like making your bed in public" (WaPo).

Did you participate in "No Mow May"?

Tell me if you contributed more to the glorious enterprise of not mowing than we did:

I've got exactly 2 TikToks to show you tonight.

1. "The Lord... maketh me to lie down in green pastures," it says in Psalm 23, but is it really a good idea to lie down in a pasture? I see a problem (or 2). But this lady lies down. She's got her idea. She wants to see what animal comes to her first.

2. Thoreau wrote: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." And here is that man, God bless him.

Frost, this morning.

"For many Mormons in Utah... the concept of being a good steward is wrapped up in a pioneer nostalgia that favors an artificial, irrigated landscape..."

"... over the natural desert environment. This Mormon version of Manifest Destiny is at the heart of why Utahns suck up so much municipal water... more municipal water than any state in the country, except for Idaho. And why the state has long supported a heavily subsidized water pricing system and zoning laws that encourage, if not flat-out demand, a yard full of well-tended grass. When trying to explain the near-religious devotion to irrigated landscapes, Mormons often quote a verse from the Old Testament (Isaiah 35:1-2) that inspired their 19th century pioneer ancestors who settled in Utah: 'The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.'... For Marlene and Emron, both professors at Brigham Young University who live in a historic, tree-lined neighborhood in Provo, 45 miles south of Salt Lake City, letting their lawn die was an expression of their faith. 'I want to be a better Christian steward of the place where I live,' says Marlene. 'Why not let the desert bloom as a desert?'"

From "For Mormons, a perfect lawn is a godly act. But the drought is catching up with them/Heavily subsidized water ‘made the desert bloom’ but the tradition is now driving Utah dry" (The Guardian).

I've got 9 TikToks for you this evening. Let me know which ones you like best.

1. "Benjamin Franklin or food?"

2. Taking work seriously. 

3. "People always say that kids with Down Syndrome always super happy...."

4. "The great phone books.... why, yes, I remember them well...."

5. Cursing at the neighbor in Italian....

6. "Stay here with me, an old man..."

7. Nick Cave sings the word "bathtub" 10 times — ranked.

8. So you think your kid will feel the magic of the movie that felt like magic to you when you were a kid?

9. Scott!! 

The NYT checks in on Wisconsin: "An unmown lawn in Appleton, Wis. By letting the grass grow long, plants typically identified as weeds were able to flower, providing important spring food for bees."

I'm quoting a caption for a photograph that shows a lot of dandelions blooming and going to seed.

The article's headline is "In Wisconsin: Stowing Mowers, Pleasing Bees/Can the No Mow May movement help transform the traditional American lawn — a manicured carpet of grass — into something more ecologically beneficial?" 

Appleton’s No Mow May initiative had a clear purpose: to save the bees — and not just honeybees (which are European imports), but also native bees, such as bumble bees, mining bees and sweat bees. Lawns typically provide poor habitat for bees. But if allowed to flower, lawn weeds — perhaps better characterized as plants other than grass — can provide rare spring food for bees emerging from hibernation.....

I think dandelions are a special problem. Why not sow clover?

"The risks come not only from the noise and the chemical emissions that two-stroke engines produce, but also from the dust they stir up."

"'That dust can contain pollen, mold, animal feces, heavy metals and chemicals from herbicides and pesticides'.... All this adds up to increased risk of lung cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, premature birth and other life-threatening conditions.... But the trouble with leaf blowers isn’t only their pollution-spewing health consequences. It’s also the damage they do to biodiversity. Fallen leaves provide protection for overwintering insects and the egg sacs of others. Leaf blowers, whether electric or gasoline-powered, dislodge the leaf litter that is so essential to insect life — the insect life that in turn is so essential to birds and other wildlife. The ideal fertilizer and mulch can’t be found in your local garden center. They are available at no cost in the form of a tree’s own leaves...."

From "The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Leaf Blowers" (NYT).

And there's this: "hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Raptor." 

(I had to look up what a Raptor is — even though we are in the process of buying a Ford F-150. It's the bulked up version of the F-150.)

Why aren't people ashamed to be seen (or heard) using a leaf-blower? It's quite bizarre.

Backyard seen from the 3rd-floor window at 5:47 a.m.

 

I love the way this was designed and grown to be looked at from above. I'm nearly always seeing it from the 3rd or 2nd floor. It's nice at ground level too, but I'm delighted by the undulating shapes of the low treetops. And of course, I love the part I call "the protractor." The long grass inside of the mown grass is wheat.

Alliums still peaking.

And here's a photo by Meade, showing, along with the alliums, the square of wheat field that's in the process of distinguishing itself from the lawn: 

Redbud petals in the lawn.

Backyard protractor wheatfield.

 

Yes, it's our backyard. Yes, it's a wheatfield. Obviously, it's in the shape of a protractor — an old-time-y open-center protractor.

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can write about whatever you want.

Invisible sun rising on the lake...

... on the morning of the first frost...