What have I been doing?
Well, lots of this-
                          Before: lots of brown leaves and blasted dandelions.
                                                           Shame on me!

And After: Over an hour of weeding/trimming (per-bed)

and they're ready for their straw blanket.

                                                and here is that bud, Earl Of Essex

And of course since I've been away from the garden the last two days, I forgot to go out and cut it to bring inside. I'll go see, but I expect a frozen mushy purple/white mess :(   There were a couple early buds on Zee also, but I expect they froze too hard to keep going.  We're just too far north to give the re-bloomers enough warm weather for fall hurrah.

 I hope we get some more warm weather so I can try to finish.  17 beds to go, but my Dr. actually said the bending was bad for my GERD and I should "leave the rest till spring".  Doctors orders ;) If only! ha  If I don't clean them off they will be a real mess next spring.  *sigh