Or “Where Am I Going To Put All This Stuff?”
We have really nice summers here in South Western Ontario. Warm from May to September, often thirty degrees Celsius or more, and not too humid most of the time. As a result, we all like to have a nice yard to use, and with that yard comes an awful lot of stuff. Tables, chairs, plants, bird baths, fountains, and much, much, more. The only problem is that most of that stuff isn’t going to survive too long if we left it out during the winter.
Winters here are, by Canadian standards, very mild. We don’t normally get much cold weather before Christmas, and while we can go six or eight weeks below zero in the New Year, that’s rare, as is us getting much in the way of snow. But that would still be enough to trash anything left exposed to the elements.
So, come October it’s time to pack everything away. The pool gets closed by professionals (at huge cost!), but I still have work to do prepping, then getting the poolside furniture put away. This year we have two rain barrels, and a heap of children’s toys to be stored, that latter item expanding with every year as the grand-baby gets bigger. The patio furniture has to go in the shed, as does a growing arsenal of garden tools and sundries we now have to maintain the garden. It all has to be cleaned off, too, which is isn’t fun.
Then there’s the garage, used in the summer months to store camping gear, well one side of the garage anyway, and that all has to be shifted so that we can get two of the three family cars stored under cover. The garage this year was also an auxiliary potting shed, and a store for Charlie’s bike, scooter, go-kart, and strollers, so there was even more stuff.
Our shed isn’t packed up yet, rain stopped play when I was working on the task today, but the basement, is packed to bursting with seasonal accoutrements ranging from camping gear to pool pumps.
We have at least stopped prepping the garden for winter. Our native plant array loves to be left where it is, and that allows all manner of beneficial creatures to over-winter with us. We don’t mulch or rake the leaves anymore, either, as the bugs like those as well.
But the packing up process is a chore, and gets more involved every year. I don’t mind, though, as it’s always an inversely proportional pleasure getting it all out again next Spring. Thank goodness for retirement.