Fall Cleanup

My least favorite outdoor job is done. Well, at least the front yard part. We enjoyed the flowers all summer -- poppies, Siberian iris, yarrow, lavender, daisies, amaryllis, black-eyed Susans, and others whose names I’ve forgotten. But other than one small stalk of dainty white amaryllis and a tiny determined black-eyed Susan, they have quit blooming and are succumbing to our periodic light frosts. It was time. So I went out this morning with my clippers and rake, and did the deed. So sad.

I was about three minutes into the job when who should show up but Daisy, one of our bookend cats. We have two, a brother and sister, who are both mostly white with ears, tails, and spots of a different color -- Daisy’s alternate color is yellow, and Oreo’s is black. They are outside cats now, since MamaCat came to live with us -- a story for another time -- and claim most of the neighborhood as their own. If my husband or I am outside, they seem to instinctively know, and come wandering home. Which Daisy did quickly this morning. She hung around supervising the job until it was time for the bagging and cleanup. A girl after my own heart, Daisy doesn’t like that part either. So she wandered over to inspect the bags of leaves that 80-something year old neighbor Bernice put out at the curb. She stayed away until the cleanup was done, then like a naughty 8 year old caught avoiding work, sheepishly wandered back. Daisy talks to me while I work. I say, “Daisy?” and she replies, “Meow.”

My friend, Lynne, was over a week or so ago and walked home. As she went around the corner from our house, she saw Daisy sitting on the steps of our neighbor’s house. Lynne asked her what she was doing there, and Daisy replied, “Meow.” Lynne spoke to her again, and Daisy responded appropriately. Lynne called me later to tell me of the conversation. A day or two later, I saw Daisy was walking home from the other side of our cul-de-sac past little Maia, a neighbor girl who was playing at the curb. Daisy paused, turned and looked at Maia and said, “Meow.” Then continued home.

Oreo doesn’t talk. He is the strong silent type, rubbing his white fur all over whatever dark pants you are wearing. If you sit down, he insists on being on your lap. If you push him off, he’ll wait a minute and try again, just to be sure the push wasn’t an accident. I don’t know where Oreo was this morning, but he didn’t join Daisy and me in our fall yard duties. He seems to prefer the winter snow-shoveling chores. He’s very easily “lost” in the snow, and sometimes I just see his black spots skipping across the latest shovel full of snow I’ve tossed. He chases it.

So the front flower bed is harvested of its dead debris. I’ll tackle the back yard part of the cleanup with a little more enthusiasm knowing that Daisy, and maybe even Oreo, will come around to supervise.