Same (wild wind) here. I gathered up some strips of landscape fabric off the vegetable plot, rescued two wayward baskets, got a few leaves out of the stairwell and into the compost, put a few things in the shed, and called it quits.

It's usually like this one weekend this time of year- that's usually the weekend I planned to do outdoor XMas decorating

Yes, very windy, chilly, cold. No sun. What a change both yesterday and today from the warm mild weather of the past week.

I will say that the windy weather is pretty cool. We have neighbors a few houses away that didn't rake at all this fall. It now looks like they raked their leaves as the wind has blown them all away. Yesterday my next door neighbor raked out a pile of leaves to the street. This morning the pile was mostly gone. A lot of them are collecting in my beds but I'm happy to play winter host to the leaves as they leave (pun intended) plenty of goodies in the soil. I haven't raked any all season; just mow them up and dump the bag into the beds as winter mulch.

Never, ever have I been outside in winds like the ones we had Sunday! The loudest noises were continuous flapping of the heavy tarps that hang on the chain-link fence around HD's garden area. Some of the ropes came loose...It really was Scarrrrry!!! !
The poor outside cashier managed to ring up whatever folks had bought. One older lady had 3 shopping carts full of asst. stuff. I bet her sale came up to around $300. I helped her load it in her van. She was just throwing things in there.

Why were we all outside you may ask?
A big, long tractor trailer pulled up with a load of X-Mas trees. Easily close to 2-hundred..
All able boddied males and 3 female associates (i helped some too) were out there unloading the trees.
Throwing them out from the truck---not very carefully.
I bet some tops of the trees got broken off.
At one point--I saw a shopping cart start to roll down the road behind the garden fence. It was just rolling and rolling...I saw it and went to catch up with it.
Finally did--half way down the road.
Found a job I could do to help without too much effort. Putting all the cute, smaller trees (3'-4') in their saucers. Cleaned all the webby netting off each one too. Stood them all up in a protected spot.
The vendor will have to find a place to display them all. We already have a table full of these.
Tony was off yesterday. BOY! Could we have used his help!

This AM I went out to scrutinize what damages may be out there. No pots outside. They are all taken care of. Did see some seriously long pieces off my trees. All deadwood. Gathered them all up and left them in a pile. Will deal with it all when it gets warmer. Ahhh--the adventures of working at the HD. Gita

Huge winds here too. Terra-cotta pots affixed to the house got tossed, broken to bits.
I do find this weather invigorating. Nordic roots, I reckon.

Wind still blowing .

The purple leaf Cherry Blossom tree in the backyard still had about 98% of its leaves when the wind started on Sunday. Now it hasn't got 98 leaves on it.

I hate it being so very windy. Just makes it feel much too cold.

It feels like a rude awakening to winter, it's been pretty mild till now. I still have a large begonia on the deck, nestled in a protected corner, that has not yet melted in the cold.

While driving late this afternoon I saw a weather phenomenon I haven't seen in a while. and a sure sign that winter is nigh: Sundogs. These are vertical pieces of rainbow positioned at 9 and 3 o'clock relative to the sun and due to ice crystals high in the atmosphere. The colors were quite pronounced, which is often not the case. Felt I could hear sled dogs barking in the distance.......brrrrrr.

sallyg said:It feels like a rude awakening to winter.

Exactly how I feel. Hunkering down for winter. Brrrrr....

@greenthumb99 I had never heard of the term of sundog before. Just took a look at some sundog pics. Spectacular!

David, dog gone. Haven't heard the term "sundog" in a while. Btw, nice usage of "nigh." Heck, are we in a time warp?

I've never seen sundogs. But they hauled in some cold, alright- 21.9 degrees here this morning. So much for that begonia, I expect (an extra that I potted up last minute from an outside pot, and wasn't pretty) but I wonder if my big aloe is alright.

Just sort of "wondering out loud" here.... I wonder if I were to bury some of my annuals in pots under a big ol' pile of leaf mulch, if they would winter over?

Rick, I've been able to winter-over geraniums. Just boxed 'em up with newspaper and kept them in the garage. So such luck with other annuals, however.

sallyg said:It feels like a rude awakening to winter, it's been pretty mild till now. I still have a large begonia on the deck, nestled in a protected corner, that has not yet melted in the cold.

Yes, it had been nice then gets cold for three days. Thankfully it is nicer today but I doubt the 60's will be coming back anytime really soon.

I'm diggin' the cold for sure. And even happier because of what I saw in the GFS 384 hour forecast. At least for my area, the GFS is showing a decent 3-6" snowfall for 12/1 and a sleet/freezing rain event for 12/6. Hopefully the snow even holds together.

Interestingly enough, Saturday was 73 degrees here and by nightfall it was in the mid 30's and sleeting.

Rick, got nothing to lose, do you? A lot of our annuals are just plants from warmer zones. My tricolor wandering jew is entirely mush, but that begonia, still looks fine! Butter daisies away from the house are toast, but one nearby within a foot of the house, still OK.
Gorgeous day.

Depending on the annual in question, you might get new plants just by letting them go to seed.

I sure would not be happy to see snow. Hate winter.

Warmer today than yesterday but by Sunday it is going to be colder again.

It can't snow yet! There are still plenty of leaves on some shrubs and even a few trees, making it kind of hard to clean up leaves and put down mulch. One of my Japanese Maples hasn't even started to drop leaves yet.