What is that bright thing in the sky?

Say Hallelujah and pass the sunglasses! The Sun has come out to play! The rain stopped by the time I left work on Friday - after giving us 16.23 inches for the month of October (average is 3.81 inches) - and has stayed with us ever since. Not a drop of rain all weekend. Feels like a miracle, after the deluge.

Benjamin finishes up the fence.

We took advantage of the sun to get some chores done outside. The most pressing of these was installing a fence to keep Miikka in the yard. We have fence on two sides of the back yard, but the end of the garden is open to the neighbors' little woodland area. They are never out there - in fact, I have never seen them anywhere but in their cars as they pass - but that doesn't mean they want an unruly puppy barking, digging, and pooping back there. Eventually we will put up a real fence to match the other two sides, but Benjamin wants to do it himself, especially after seeing the price estimates from two legit fence companies. Since he doesn't have time to tools to do a real fence at the moment, we decided to put up a little chicken wire fence that won't block the view, but will keep Miikka in. Thank goodness he is short.

Miikka inspects Benjamin's work.

After a marathon trip to Home Depot, we got down to work, and in less than an hour, had a passable little fence. So far, Miikka has not shown any inclination to dig under or jump over the fence. And it was so nice to be able to work in the yard without having to keep an eye on him, or chase him back into our yard.

Miikka wants to know where all his acorns went...

That work mostly consisted of leaf work - raking and shredding. I have ordered a large compost bin for our garden, and plan to use shredded leaves to start it off. So, this weekend, I also purchased my first real power tool - a leaf blower/vacuum shredder. Those of you who know me, probably also know of my vehement dislike for noisy power tools. Heck, I hate them. Some of that is from past personal traumas (hedge-trimmers = my idea of a nightmare), and some of that is that I can't stand the pollution - noise and air. But, I needed a way to shred the leaves. So, a leaf vacuum it is. Since we don't have a power mower, and a reel mower just doesn't cut up leaves, I had to get something. This was a lot cheaper than a standing shredder, and since it has blades, instead of weed trimmer cord, it is able to chop up the extra tough oak leaves.

And I thought I wouldn't be raking leaves again, once we left New York.

The compost bin should arrive some time this week, but until then, there really isn't anywhere to put all those leaves, shredded or not, so I didn't do much with the blower this weekend. I did rake the leaves into piles, and it now looks like we have some hideous giant leaf gopher problem in the yard. Oh well, as long as it stays dry, I can always go out after work and start shredding, once the bin is here.