It Is Brutal Outside . . .

Gee, how I wish Al Gore was right with the Global Warning.  Boy is he ever wrong.  While it borders on freezing outside the gusty North winds make it unbearable.  The cold dry air is ripping across the yard.

We, here in North Texas, are at the bottom end of the Great Plains.   So cold air flows all the way from Canada down to us.  Often if the winds are absent, the cold will reach the Red River valley and turn left heading towards Shreveport and points East.  This time Mother Nature was in high gear and the cold air just plowed on through the Red River valley down to us and beyond.

Those who are South and East of us who are used to more balmy weather better gear up for the cold.  No moisture to speak off, no rain, sleet, or snow, just cold air.  The winds took care of all the remaining leaves on our Shumarc Oaks (Red Oaks) in the front yard.  The early freeze we had set the leaves for a while.  But now they are down and around.

Yesterday, a balmy day for us, I got out the leaf vacuum and sucked up about five bushels of leaves.  When it sucks them up, it also kind of shreds them, not all of them but most of them.  I take them out back and toss them in the compost pile.  Maybe by spring, they will be good compost - not.  They just sit there with no moisture do not decompose very much at all. 

The wind is also moving a lot of the leaves off to other places, like next door, the vacant lot next to us.  And maybe even further, I hope move further or they will return by the South wind that surely will return.   Then we will have to get the lawn tractor out and "mow" the leaves up.  The mower deck is closed off, so all that is cut gets ground up.  Beats raking by a long shot.

 We have one volunteer oak on the side yard by the driveway.  It too is a red oak variety but it is a Barkley Oak.  Barkley's do not drop their dead leaves but hold on to them until they get pushed off in the Spring.  The Live Oak next door holds its leaves too, but they remain green all winter.  The deer rutted against the little oak and almost debarked the trunk.  I was able to cover the scars with some spray paint and the tree has soldier on with a good recovery.  It is a bit too big for the deer to attack  now and so they have left it alone this year.  I am sure a bird deposit the acorn from which it originated.  There are a number of them scattered around in the neighborhood.  It is a very local variety of oak tree.

It is odd the Barkley is the same age as Post Oak in the same area.  The Post Oak better than five years old is about three feet tall.  The Barkley, same general age, is about 20 feet tall.  It is all genetics.  So small Post Oak trees are quite old, and large ones are very old.  We have one that is large, very old and probably dying too.  We keep treating it and it hangs on.  But we will lose it sooner or later.

Stay warm.