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I answered by searching the garage for my leaf rake. Then I went to end of my driveway and began to rake up the twiggy debris of winter that was scattered across my front lawn. It is not apparent from the street that an obsessed gardener lives here. There is a wide front lawn, which grows well although it is never fertilized, and some tasteful plantings of shrubs, bulbs and perennials.
The front yard is split by a stone wall, and beyond the wall the signs begin. There are four compost bins in the inner front yard, with the kitchen bin right by the front door for easy access. Several other loose piles of debris are placed around the edges of the garden, and these piles are left as habitat for wildlife from skunks to salamanders. I carried my twiggy lawn debris to one of these piles, behind a bed of tall Siberian Iris that will hide it from sight most of the summer.
I may allow the edges of my garden to go wild, but I am careful about cleaning the dead foliage out of the beds. Many harmful insects overwinter as eggs, and by removing the foliage to compost piles on the other side of the garden I can reduce the pest load in summer.
I cut back many perennials back in the fall, but there are always sections I don't get to, and I moved on to this work after raking the lawn. it was satisfying to see the new green growth revealed as I cut away the old, and to anticipate the lush growth of summer. I spent a happy afternoon cleaning the lawn and garden, beginning the season by removing the tired remnants of the last.
Finally, I sat in a chair in the middle of the back yard for a while, looking around and planning. Sol came over around sunset, put his paws on my leg, and looked me in the eyes. I scratched the thin line of white that runs down the middle of his red forehead and was content.
This morning when I got up at 6:30am it was 15 degrees, but as I walked Sol in his warm jacket and looked over my newly raked lawn I knew that winter's grasp was loosening.
