Winterizing

October is the month of awe in New England. The brilliance of the foliage demands you take notice; that you stop for a moment in reverence for all the Earth provides. Trees on fire in hues of red, orange and yellow seem to ignite an urgency to be outdoors and basking in the last remnants of consistent sunlight. Then comes the blandness of November and you remember that it is time to turn indoors and tend to the hearth.

So we are tending and winterizing our chilly, drafty rental house. Our landlords are really great and we try to be the independent renters who only bother them for plumbing or electrical emergencies. There honestly isn’t much they can do about the drafts short of installing new windows and doors or fixing the duct systems, so I pull out the step stool and tape and get started on all the windows. The girls’ room is first because the humongous vent on the floor is a weak heat source, so they also get a mini-heater. Bit actually sleeps in our room so Bug gets the snuggliest footie jammies Mommy can find (even with socks underneath) and extra ladybug blankets. As she gets bigger and grows out of the “t” sizes these are getting more and more difficult to find. I swear every toddler girl in Southern New Hampshire is her size because these jammies sell out fast.

The front door is the next project for winterizing that always baffles me. Personally, I would prefer to seal it off completely and hang a blanket over it, but Muffin isn’t too keen on spending the next six months with no front door access and a giant elephant-sized blanket on his wall. The door wasn’t cut completely straight so there are gaps and weather stripping has to be cut and customized to fit in correctly.

The most daunting task on the winterizing list is the raking. The never-ending raking. While we only have two trees in our yard the neighboring trees are close to fence line so we have a mountain of leaves each year. This is Bug’s second favorite outdoor chore (gardening is the first) and she runs and runs with excitement as she jumps in all my piles and throws leaves in the air. The fact that she is so cute makes it worth the extra time recreating my piles. And she loves to be the leaf stomper. She stomps and spins and makes up songs like she is Lucy stomping grapes, only not as messy.

These are the household chores I don’t actually mind. The raking I enjoy because I am outdoors and because there is an eventual end. It’s not quite like laundry where I take a deep breath of accomplish only to turn and find that Bit has spit up all over her clothes and Muffin has unloaded a suitcase without me knowing it. No, there are only so many leaves that can fall in my yard and while it is a lot, they can all be tamed. When it is finished I can actually look back at my work and see that I did something measurable that day. And the winterizing makes an impact on my heating bills and how many chills I feel a day so that, my friends is money in the bank. Any activity that gives me a measured sense of accomplishment helps me feel like I am standing strong on one leg with only a breeze to ruffle my pink feathers.