That’s a lot of pine needles! I’ll bet it feels good to have that chore done. And they’re so useful, too!
We got our first dusting of snow, overnight. I just got the rain barrel drained fully, yesterday morning!
We have a large windbreak of Black Hills Spruce and White Pine intermingled across the north side of our property. It borders a farm field.
I love walking through there in the Fall when some of the White Pine needles are down and so fragrant underfoot! I’ve spend many hours trimming out wild grapevine and dead branches. It looks like a park back there, LOL! One chore I DON’T mind working on, actually.
When I mowed the needles into piles, I had the mower set fairly high to keep the needles from getting cut up. When I mow grass, with the mower lower, the cut needles smell like turpentine ... I ‘love’ that smell .... it’s a Fall smell. There was the slightest smell of turpentine in the pole barn with the bagged needles - some got cut with the mower, just enough for that faint hint of Fall!
Our old, huge pines are like a ‘park’ in some places ... I call it Nature’s Cathedral - they’re beautiful. We had a forester out to look at them a couple of years ago & he aged them for us. I wonder what those trees have ‘seen’ in their lifetimes ... for the last 55 years, it’s been ‘us’ (that’s how long we’ve had the place).
Here in coastal North Carolina with my mix of trees, lawn/leaf bagging begins about October 10 and continues at a constant rate until about April. Our maples, that are meant for colder climates, take all fall and winter to drop their leaves in this climate. They also only turn yellow. Likewise the drop from Willow Oak, Pine and Black cherry go all season.
What I do is have mower service, blade and bag setup done at the first of October as I will be dealing with this for the whole winter.
Came in for a hat, drink & 3 ibuprofen. It’s downright HOT out there - my workstation is in full sun. I could go to some trouble & move it all under the cedar trees which would be deep shade - very tempting. The shade will gradually creep over, but got a while to go in the sun yet.
There’s not a cloud in the sky .... intense blue. Most of the leaves are down, but there’s a splotch of color here & there. Other than being a bit ‘warm’ where I’m working, it’s a gorgeous day. I hope we get another spell of this sort of weather around Thanksgiving - next week won’t be so balmy.