Dear Editor,

Hard frost is coming soon, so be sure to empty your rain barrels and lay them on their side or upside down for the winter. Even just a smidgeon of water in the rain barrel can ruin it when it freezes – especially, the plastic spigot on repurposed olive barrels. How do I know? I did my own research on it years ago.

If you have your lawn raked free of hardwood leaves, there are people who crave those, especially maple leaves, as mulch and/or compost fodder. The microbes who do the heavy lifting in the compost process need a balanced diet of fresh kitchen scraps and dry carbonaceous material.

If you toss bottles, cans or plastic wrappers along the roadside or on somebody else’s lawn, you’re doing great disservice to your neighbours and to the waste management effort, which we all are paying for.

Robert Wills, Shawville and Thorne