TENDING TO END OF SEASON CHORES, REASONINGS

There comes a time in the early autumn days when you decide the grass cutting is over for the year. It is an end-of-the-season thing, accompanied by a good feeling that you've once more successfully finished a demanding marathon of staying ahead of the grass and weeds and are ready for what comes next.

What comes next at my place is pulling the scraggly petunia plants from the window boxes and yard planters. They still have some blossoms on them and would have, right up to the first killing freeze. But, to me, empty receptacles are neater looking than if filled with leggy plants far past their better days.

Then there is the ritual cleaning of the bird houses. The martin house is the biggest deal. With wrench and axle grease, ladder and gloves, I pick a nice sunny, non-windy day for this when the butterflies are fluttering southward and a mockingbird is ready to serenade anyone who steps outside.

The wrench is to loosen the nuts and bolts on the telescoping sections so they'll come down and insert into each other. The grease is to help this sliding process and also to assure the sections will come up easily next spring. Messy job and the mockingbird titters.

I haven't seen a martin house yet that doesn't have a few sparrow nests in it. I call them sparrow hay bales. Grass, twigs and feathers are packed in so tightly the nests come out intact, like little bales of hay. I marvel that the nestlings don't suffocate.

After the nests are removed with the aid of scraper and whisk broom, I further clean the compartments with the garden hose, aiming the forceful water into the doorways. After an hour or two the inside is dry enough to dust with sulfur. This will destroy any mites that might be tucked away in the seams, awaiting their hosts to return in the spring. The little round doors are then put into place. A loving pat is given to this house on a pole that says, "See you next spring."

The wren houses are easier. At least one of them is. A sliding bottom is removed and the old nest comes out easily. This year I was surprised that with the removal of the all-twig nest came a full setting of the little eggs. Seven. My first reaction was, Abortion! The wrens just went off and left them. But I guess there is a difference here fertilized eggs outside the body. I'll have to think about that a while.~ Maybe~ the~ wrens dallied too long with their adventure of raising a second family, and the southern call became overwhelming.

The end-of-the-season picking of the green tomatoes and pulling of the vines is determined by the weather forecaster. If the report says, "killing frost tonight," I get my basket and pick off the jade goodies. I love sliced, green tomatoes, rolled in cornmeal and fried and could have them all summer long, but I deny myself that pleasure until the picking of the green tomatoes in the fall. Some of the green ones will be left to ripen on window sills or basement shelves. They might be better than the ones that ripened in the sun this summer. Mine had real thick, tough skins.

And then there are the end-of-the-season wasp nests to be destroyed. What! Why do you wait that long? Why don't you get at them sooner? Well, I do, but wasps are persistent, especially the ones that build their nests far up underneath the metal awnings. I have to stand on steps and use the longest pole I can find to knock them down, drop the pole quickly and spray a cloud of wasp killer all around me and the wasps, and possibly run with one or more in hot pursuit. You just don't do these things every summer day, but the wasps build and repair every day and young wasps just keep coming on.

They all die, though, come winter except a few queens who crawl into snug shelters and emerge next spring to start the whole process again.

The reason I destroy the old nests at end-of-summer time, especially the hard to rea~ch ones, is I think I might keep the queens from crawling out next spring and saying to themselves, "Hmmm, this must have been a good place to build a nest since my ancestors lived here."

With bird houses, tomatoes and tomato vines, petunias, wasps nests all attended to, I dust my hands together and decide that's enough for one week. Next week oh, well, one week at a time.

REJOICE!