Garden Short- Cuts

I may feel twenty inside but the outside tells the real tale.
That's why I take liberties with the end-of-season garden clean-up.
Squeeze the summer stuff in the shed, throw the garden debris into the raised beds, and prepare to face the reality in the spring.

I read recently that the bags of dirt we buy are simply decomposed leaves, so my thrifty self says, "why not do the decomposing yourself?" Why not. Here's the test run, the berm. I stole a lot of earth from here to fill the new raised beds so the berm must build up once more, to do justice to the squashes I plant there.
A visiting son scooped a front yard's worth of fallen leaves into this space and we dumped a couple of bags of store- bought earth on to help the process along. Leave it alone for a couple of rainfalls to soak them, then the tarp is on and will remain until spring.

The fish will try out the new pond heater this year. Other than that, they are completely self-sufficient, my kind of pet.

Max Is the Man

Max took his haircut with reasonable grace.
He sat still and endured the sound of the electric razor and the combing out of his tail, but I wouldn't describe him as impressed.

Lucky for us we don't have to do this for another five months.

Next time I'll Have A Plan

After five years I'm pretty sure the basement is never going to have finished walls and I reasoned that at least painting the stairs would be a help.
There are two fuzzy cats on the premises and it would have been a good idea to carefully plan how to keep them at bay because simply closing the door at the top of the stairs won't do the trick.
At the last minute I took a "what-the-hell' attitude and began painting.
Every other step, so I could get up and down.

So far so good.
The cats were interested but stood their ground at the top and simply watched me.
Until I got to the Urethane.
The good news is that cats move so fast there was hardly a wet footprint to be seen.
And judging by the bottom step, a lighter paint would have been better to hide adult footprints