> > It's that time of year again. Those beautiful autumn leaves are ankle deep all over the yard. I use a riding mower with a bagger to pick them up and carry them to the compost pile behind the garden. It takes hundreds of trips to get them over there. I hauled about 25 loads today. I usually don't finish until late December. In the 28 years we've lived here, the earliest was about December 10, but there were two years when I never did finish. Both times it killed a large area of grass and I had to reseed. The leaves make great garden compost, because the mower chops them up and they rot quickly. It makes about three or four pickup loads of black mulch. Some years I even mulch the corn and beans, but usually I concentrate on tomatoes, peppers, okra, cabbages, squash and other stuff that needs moisture. I noticed a couple of green bell peppers over in the garden today. We still haven't had a real frost and there are flowers blooming. I guess I'm not ready for winter.
> > Howard
>
> It's that time of year again. Those beautiful autumn snowflakes are about two inches deep all over the diveway. My family uses a plastic shovel to pick them up and carry them to the snowdrift beside the driveway. It takes hundreds of trips to get them over there. We must have hauled about a hundred shovelfuls today. It never ends. In the 18 years I've lived here, the earliest the snow left for good was about March, but there are years when it lasts all the way until June. Those times, it sucks. The snow makes great snowmen, except when it gets all powdery (if it's too cold). But whenever we make one, it always gets really warm for about a day to melt the snowman down and then it snows again. One year I even tried to make a snow fort, but it melted before I got it waist high. Winter came suddenly this year, it was plus ten one day and minus fifteen the next (Celsius). Fortunately, we'd already finished raking the leaves and aerating the soil and stuff. Personally, though, I guess I'm not ready for winter. It's too darn cold!
> -Space "Yay for Edmonton!" Bar
>
Canadians are a hearty people. Not only do they survive those killer winters, they have to do it without a Florida. They could go to our Florida, but it would mean driving for days and days. On top of that, their dollars become 70 cents as soon as they cross the border. The obvious solution is to build a Florida peninsula for them and attach it to southern Manitoba, right between North Dakota and Minnesota. It would be a whole new province complete with a tropical climate, powdered-sugar beaches and palm trees. They could easily pay for it with tourist dollars from Dee-troit. It could be called Florada or Canida. I'll let Canada work out the other details.
Howard