Returning from a magical vacation in Maine, I was fearing a little letdown but Bloomington provided some magic of its own. Fall in Indiana is pretty much as good as it gets away from the ocean. Located at the northern tip of the Hoosier National forest, numerous hardwood species abound and are the main sources for my pretty serious woodworking hobby. Their beauty is displayed as their leaves turn and provides a fairly significant tourism boost to the regional counties.
The maples are usually among the first to turn, but ash is not far behind and as I write, they are shedding their leaves in our yard. Thus begins the annual ritual of leaf collecting and disposal, which some of my friends bemoan, but Jenny and I have come to enjoy this opportunity to be active outdoors during the spectacular fall weather in Indiana. Our preferred method is to have regular sessions, keeping the leaves at bay! Others will let them accumulate and then make a big push at the end. There's a Zen moment in there somewhere, but this writer is incapable of capturing it adequately.
The large front yard is my responsibility and requires the use of the pretty serious John Deere lawn tractor with its two pickup bags. Jenny prefers to rake the smaller (relatively) backyard using a very large tarp on which our dogs like to 'surf' as she drags it around.
The large front yard is my responsibility and requires the use of the pretty serious John Deere lawn tractor with its two pickup bags. Jenny prefers to rake the smaller (relatively) backyard using a very large tarp on which our dogs like to 'surf' as she drags it around. This past weekend's weather was truly spectacular, with clear blue skies and low 60's temperatures. After helping a neighbour remove a very large cedar stump last winter, I had promised to burn the resulting pile of roots and cuts and Sunday was the day chosen. Jenny and I spent a pleasant few hours starting and feeding the fire. The stump was so large that it burned throughout the night and provided the startings for the fire I needed in our own backyard the next day to burn the brush and small limbs from a dead sassafras I had to cut down and from two fallen pine trees in the woods. My tree-felling skills are not going to threaten the local professionals and despite Jenny pulling strongly on the long rope, the sassafras decided to fall in the opposite direction. Fortunately, there was ample room and no harm was done other than to my ego.
The tree-cutting was something of a passage for me, being my first attempt at using my not too small Stihl chainsaw since my mishap in the workshop in March that left me with less than ten fingers. Mirabile dictu, it worked! The day ended with Jenny and I sitting around the firepit avec doggies (Seamus in foreground and Niamh on my lap) as the last of the wood burned down. As you can tell from the picture, we enjoy having an outside fire on a regular basis 
