97 Bags

We had another banner year for black walnuts falling into our backyard along with the leaves. Last year I filled 74 bags of nuts and leaves and that was the record. This year when the leaves and nuts had all dropped from the black walnut trees in the backyard I had a new record of 86 bags.

Then something weird happened. The catalpa tree next door usually drops a lot of big leaves and seed pods over a long period of time that goes from the early fall into the winter. Then more in the spring along with those little flowers. This year all of the leaves and pods dropped almost all at once over about a week. That happened just after I finished with the walnuts. I don't usually fill any bags with catalpa droppings. I usually just clean up a little bit here and there and toss the debris into the trash containers. This time I had to pack the leaves and pods into 11 bags for trash removal.

That makes for a grand total of 97 bags of yard debris this year. A really big new record. The photo here is the last of the bags.

Becky and I were talking about all these bags and we decided that next year we will do something a little different with the bags. We'll get some paper yard bags and try them again. The last time I tried them the black walnuts caused the bags to tear apart and spill debris out. Maybe I can try again. 

There are also large eco-friendly plastic bags which are available and we will try them next year. No more of those regular green trash bags. Some of them were tearing this year too. Time for something different.