autumn questions in Minneapolis

[mellowtigger]

Anyone know where to find 4 good thumbnail icons to use for the 4 seasons? I should get some to complete a "theme" for the changing of the seasons.  Autumn is here in Minneapolis. I've seen some streets with "No Parking" signs for street sweeping already. Not at my street yet. With that early freeze, I expect to get more leaves than usual soon, so this street sweep might actually be helpful instead of cleaning already clean roads.

We had an unusually warm (again) weekend, so I used it to get some yard work done. On Saturday, I worked on cleaning up the front yard. Here it is after using the weed eater and sweeping up 2 big bags of compostable leaves into bags, plus 1 bag of random trash. I had the window on the front porch open while I worked, and my cat was excited by all the wonderful scents that I stirred up. When I walked inside, she was squirming around on the couch on the porch, enjoying sun and smells.



Today, I worked on the back yard. I finally burned the various woody things that I skipped burning last year. The wind cooperated very well, waiting until I was done before picking up. It's bringing a new weather front. There's a chance of rain tonight, then tomorrow turns cold again. It's not obvious from this photo, but my cherry tree is taller than my back porch railing now. Maybe next year, I can have a great crop of cherries?


Some plants take advantage of animals by politely asking, "Do you mind if my seeds hitch a gentle ride to someplace new?" Those are fine.  I spent a while picking them out of my clothes and hair before getting a shower to clean off today.  Some plants bond with whatever they touch, demanding, "Your flesh is mine, mammal!  You will bend to my will!"  Removing them hurts flesh and tears fibers in clothes.  I finally just gave up removing them from my socks, so I threw away the socks instead.  I've been removing plants for years that I know bring terrible seeds in autumn. I found only a few remaining this year. I yanked them and burned them in the fire pit.

I'm ready for winter snow.  I just wish I knew a good way to get rid of the awful box elder infestations outside, during this season before the bitter cold.  Are there electric bug zappers that work on them?  I'm tired of using the handheld vacuum inside to capture them before they poop all over everything indoors.

Comments

[shimmerwine]

Leaves haven't started falling here, but I drive by some monster trees that are getting ready to let fly! One tree's crown is nearly as big around as the house, so there's a lot, lot, lot of leaves!

[mellowtigger]

Because we had the hard freeze early, the trees are mostly in agreement about when to drop leaves this year, so it has looked beautiful out there. :) When the leaves fall in my yard, I now leave them where they are. No need to remove those trace elements from the soil here. But I do need to diligently clean the walkways and remove all of the plants in the cracks, otherwise it's very bothersome trying to shovel snow during 6 months of winter here.

[shimmerwine]

I miss fall in New England, and I imagine it's fairly the same where you are. I'm that person who leaves the leaves on the ground so the bugs have cover, and I let the weeds grow because the birds love all kinds of things one wouldn't expect.

I do NOT miss the snow. lol

[bitterlawngnome]

what do you want for icons?

[mellowtigger]

I'm not sure. Anything simple would be fine. I suppose the usual iconic symbols are: sprout, sun, leaf, and snowflake.

If you're willing to make your own...

[kathmandu]

Unsplash.org has free art, mostly photo-type; openclipart.org has line art and simple cartoons.

It's possible to do simple resizing and cropping with Microsoft Paint, or GIMP is free and capable of fancier photo-editing.

I think Dreamwidth has/had some icon-making communities, but I forget their names.