The Color of Winter...

 ...is brown.  Dead brown.  As in dead leaves.

I arrived back in New Home for the two week post mortem of Polarcalypse 2021.  Fortunately, we were blessed (and yes, I do use that word intentionally) with no damage at all with the sole exception of a downspout that had separated due to the weight of the ice.  No burst pipes; no collapsed ceilings; no wasted food in refrigerators or freezers that went bad.  

But we are now awash in leaves.

Every tree in our yard - and every yard around ours - that had leaves left has shed almost every one.  In our case, we have live oaks and so there were leaves on the trees.

Were.  Notice the past tense.

Now, there are leaves all over the ground, along with what appears to be dead shrubbery and dead plants.  And a vast swath of very brown looking grass.

My lime trees - the ones I was so proud of last year - are now brown sticks with dead leaves that mock me when the breeze blows.  Our Rosemary bush that was blocking the path along the back of the house is now blocking it with dead leaves and branches.  The Basil plant, that had managed to make this far, expired. 

 Only the garlic and onions, buried beneath soil and snow, made it unharmed.

I raked on Monday and filled up 10 lawn bags of leaves.  I estimate I am about 50% down with the total amount that needs to be raked.  Each of those bags is 30 gallons, so that is something like 600 gallons of leaves, dead grass, and random other dead things to be pulled up and disposed of.

I have no real concept of how much of this will come back.  We have a few - very few - shrubs that have retained their leaves and coloring (by which you can tell the natives, I suppose). And the oaks are at least native, so I assume for them this happens once in a while.  

For the rest, we will either be at the point where it comes back or we are looking at a spring and summer of serious re-landscaping.