Back To Wisconsin

I spent this last weekend in Wisconsin visiting family again and watching my grandson play football in the high school playoffs.  His team didn't get to go on to the championship game, but it was great that they got into finals!  It was a first for the Lake Geneva Badgers. 

Saturday was very windy and threatening rain, but my sister Sandi and I went to work in her garden to get it ready for the winter.  We dumped the soil out of pots and stacked them for the winter, cleaned up the storage shed and put tools away, and sorted out little fences to hang up for the winter, put away the bird bath, etc.  We always have a lot of fun working together, and the work gets done so much more quickly when there are two of us.  We laugh a lot, too!  After we worked at her house, we went to my son's house and helped clean all the piles of leaves out of the gutters.  More laughter, because no matter where we stood to steady the ladder, we got showered with leaves!  On Sunday morning I got out and pruned back my daughter-in-law's roses so that she could put the styrofoam covers on them for the winter.
 We were glad to get all of this done, because a winter storm was on its way.  The storm hit Sunday afternoon with really strong winds and rain, and then freezing temperatures on Monday morning when I left.  They also got snow on Monday night . 

The view of Lake Como from my son's house. the lake near the house  was filled with ducks on Monday morning.

A pretty corner in my son's garden.  The statuary is now all tucked away in the garage for the winter.

The rose garden and arbor at my son's house.

 

My sister sent me home with a little fairy rose bush that she had had in a pot on the deck for the summer, and also a couple of lilies.  She never lets me leave without a plant or two to try in my garden down here.  Most of them do OK in our heat.  It is survival of the fittest in my garden.  Not too much gets coddled after it once gets established, so I hope these little guys make it. 

We had a hard frost this morning, but only on the North side of the house.  I didn't see any on the South side this morning.  It was very odd to look out the windows and see frost on the grass in the back and not in the front.  The back is a little bit downhill, so I guess  that is why it settled there.
We will most likely be raking leaves Thanksgiving weekend.  They are starting to come down.
Happy planting,
Gma Susie