31 Days of October, Day 13

The redbud leaves are beginning to turn….

Today was the perfect Virginia October day. After an overnight low in the 40s, temps topped out during the day in the low 60s with bright sunshine, low humidity,  and deep blue skies. That meant we could finish the yard work we had begun the day before. My goal: finish the flower garden.

What a jumbled, overgrown mess it was after a season of rain rain rain. It was time to cut back the spent flowers and put them to bed for the winter with a layer of mulch, so that was my task.

 

A layer of mulch and it was done.

One down … several more to do.

 

I worked in the shadow of Albert, our huge spruce tree that is dying from a fungal disease that is affecting many spruces across the country. He was only about four feet tall when we moved here over 20 years ago, and I would decorate him for Christmas, share pictures of him, and even wrote about him.

His lower branches began to die a few years ago so I went looking for cures, checking to see what could be done to make him well. Sadly, I was told there was no cure, and so we have watched as his branches have slowly died from the bottom up. This winter will be hard on him and I think we’ll end up taking him down next spring. For someone who grew up in Richmond where cooler weather trees such as spruce could not survive, Albert was my mountain tree living at 1,300 feet in the Shenandoah Valley.

For now, fall has definitely set in with cold nights and we’re on leaf alert for surrounding areas. It’s autumn in the Shenandoah Valley….

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell