Fall Chores

I spent part of the afternoon chewing up leaves, yum, yum. We have 30 plus maple trees around the perimeter of our one acre and they drop a humongous amount of leaves each fall. I used to rake them all and pile them in the back yard to compost but the supply of compose out stripped my need and after we got a riding mower (our son noted that happened after he left home) I decided to just mow over the fallen leaves several times and chew them into little bits that would decompose almost immediately into the lawn. That works pretty well if the weather cooperates and this year it is being very cooperative. It was cooler today than the last few days but it was still in the mid-40ºs and dry which is the more important part.

In the process of my chore I noted a couple of photo possibilities, the latter of which is represented here. It is a cedar tree which fell in the backyard directly toward the house but it wasn't quite tall enough to hit the house. The bark is coming off and there are some very neat insect burrow patterns underneath. They remind me of tribal tattoos I've seen in photos of some aboriginal people. Markings of the Cedar tribe perhaps?