Preparing for snow: November 16 2025

Here in Minnesota, it’s always a race to get the leaves gathered and the yards and porches and walkways and lawns tidied up before the snow falls. I think I did it! We had some beautiful days this weekend and last week, which really helped!

I was not thinking about photos much as I was working, but I put in about 4 to 5 hours of work each yesterday and today, and accomplished quite a bit! Here’s the “after” picture of my front garden, completely cleaned out.

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Just for reference, here’s the same garden a few months ago!

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And here’s one from earlier in the summer before the sunflowers grew so tall.

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I don’t have a photo from the end of the season when everything had faded and died, but you can perhaps imagine how much stuff there was to pull out. It filled two wheelbarrows full.

But the leaves! I’ll try to get a picture for a subsequent blog post. I have filled about 40 giant bags!

Here’s a photo of one small area. The entire property looked like this.

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And just for fun, here’s a buck I saw in my backyard yesterday.

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Okay that’s it for this blog post. Thank you for visiting!

Photo credits: All of the photos in this post were taken by me and belong to me, unless otherwise noted.

My bio: I am a fiction writer and photographer based in Minnesota. I have had a lifelong love of fiction writing. I am earned my MFA in writing from the University of New Hampshire. My short stories go de have appeared in a range of literary journals and anthologies, and my first short story collection, Somewhere in Minnesota is available on Amazon US as well as international Amazon sites., Barnes & Noble or from the publisher.