Fall In The Texas Hill Country

I absolutely love the Fall. It is an amazing Season with the changes of color in the trees and cooler weather. Football games are playing everywhere, coats come out of the closet, and soups simmer on the stove. I actually feel energized when cooler weather comes through the area. I live in Texas so cool weather is a welcome commodity.

When our cool weather comes, moist air usually flows from the Gulf of Mexico and mixes with cold air from the North. Thunderstorms during these weather changes are very common. The clouds move in and the air is humid and very sticky. As the winds blow the moist air from the South, just when it begins to feel muggy and unbearably humid, the rains begin to fall. The rain is welcome relief because it brings in the cooler Gulf moist air. Soon after, the winds shift and the North winds begin to blow, bringing in crisp cold air. Heavenly.

Our property is covered with Oak trees. The trees in the backyard produce very small leaves which fall early in the Autumn season. The front yard is another story. The leaves are large and prolific. Because of several days of the Southern winds, the leaves have fallen from the trees with wild abandonment. In the past couple of weeks, I have raked and blown leaves into removable piles at least five times. It is a time-consuming and tiresome job.

I picked up two bags of leaves yesterday, blew some into a pile at the edge of the yard and filled our large trash can. Today, it looked exactly the same as it did before my big cleanup. The leaves in the picture posted above cover a small area of the driveway. Whew!

With the garage light shining brightly in the background and the front porch light lending additional light, I tackled the next layer of leaves this evening. It was dark outside and my neighbors were probably thinking I am "nutty as a fruitcake".. The problem is that another Northern front is coming. My yard faces Easterly and the leaves blow back and forth across the yard with each shift in the winds if not contained. I was arresting the existing fallen leaves in an effort to eliminate a bigger mess after the Cold Front. With a Northern wind and rain expected, more leaves will be falling in the next twenty-four hours.

My sweet husband has been prompting me to wait until another day because more leaves are going to fall. I insist that preventing an all day leaf collection is preferable to me. Last year we were fortunate to find a yardman to vaccum mulch the remaining leaves for $20 and the yard looked great all winter. I am about to hand in my resignation from all yard work! After all I have some hubs to write!