How to winterize your garden

Like many Canadians come fall most things freeze after a snowfall during October.
To prepare for this I have this guide about what I do before the snow starts.  First thing I do is mow the lawn to the smallest height I can on the lawn mower.  I also weed whack it but for some reason I didn't get to that this year.

Next thing I do is to remove both of my water barrels and empty them by turning them over and letting all the water drain out on the grass, once thats complete I store them down the side of my house.

The next thing I do is water any trees that won't be getting water over the winter, in my case it snowed before I could do this so I put all the snow on the driveway up onto the trunks of the trees so they get the snow melt.

The final thing to do is winterize the sprinkler system.

Now in the past I have spent around $100 or so dollars paying someone to do this.  But this year I decided I would do it myself, it looked quite easy from the youtube videos I found.
You can youtube it yourself if you like.  But my steps went something like this.  
Step 1: Buy a air compressor, I picked up one for about $130 from lowes. You will also need all the parts to connect a air hose to your sprinkler system.  Lucky for me my sprinkler system has a garden tap connected inline to it so I just needed parts to connect to that.

Step 2: Turn off the water to your sprinkler system.

Step 3: Turn on your air compressor and let it charge up with air.

Step 4: Manually turn on the valve of the zone you want to blow out in your irrigation control panel.

Step 5: Connect the air hose to your sprinkler line tap make sure the tap is open

Step 6: Connect the air hose to the air compressor.

At this point all the water in the zone will be shooting out the sprinkler jets, water will continue to come out until it is just air coming out, you should be able to tell because the jets will either spray mist or nothing and be in the ground again.  

Blow out each zone twice to ensure all the water is out and then you are done.

Ensure you turn each zone off manually and replace the irrigation control cover.

Taking paternity leave

Most men probably don't take paternity leave although they have the option to, they probably think it is sacrificing their career but I think it is one of the more rewarding things I have done.  Now I don't work for a major accounting firm or for a energy company, so maybe my views are different but nevertheless when my daughter was six months old I decided to take 6 months off to spend the time with her instead and let my wife go back to work which she did happily.

I've watched my daughter go from lying their still, to rolling, then crawling and now almost walking.  Sometimes it has been terrifying but mostly delightful.

Not only have I discovered a lot about her, I've discovered a lot about myself.  Most people probably think that paternity leave is a lot of diaper changing, cleaning, feeding, and doing other chores, which it is but the baby has to sleep, and when everything is done and shes sleeping for the 4 to 5 hours a day then you get to spend that time with yourself.  For me this was the time I spent picking up a few extra hobbies.  Mainly woodworking, sewing and canning.  The latter I only got into after buying a canning set at a farm after buying a large amount of cheap fruit.

My time for paternity leave is coming to an end though and I will miss spending every day with my little girl I probably will not miss changing that stinky diaper as soon as I've woken up.  And even though I miss being around adults and working in the real world I'm sure I will look forward to my next stint of paternity leave in a couple of years time.