wait until a good hard frost or three. i have already covered mine with mulch, but i have 50 yards of rose hedge, so a few mice here or there means nothing. there is no problem with waiting, but keep your eyes open on theweathernetwork.com and let that be your judge. Just MAKE SURE that you have a good supply of UNFROZEN compost to protect the bushes. I used oak leaves many years ago, and they are bad news. for oak leaves just put on a few inches - if you pile them, like what you're saying, the snow will pack them down, in the spring they get wet and full of molds and fungus, which makes a MESS of the roses. I would say NO! don't use leaves, but if you have to, use only a few inches.

Most years someone comes by and asks us if they can pick up the black walnuts out of our yard and we let them. In years that they don't, I pick them up and put them in a big flower pot under the shed and the squirrels get them out for food when they want them. However, I don't want the squirrels on my bird feeder because they can empty it in one day. At first I had some plastic tube feeders and they would eat big holes in them or chew the perches off so the birds couldn't sit and eat. I finally found a big heavy duty feeder which makes them 'eat like a bird' out of the tray. It hangs on a heavy metal shepherd's hook and I have to move it far enough from a tree that they can't jump on it. I had one squirrel that would climb this little metal pole on the shepherd's hook. One day I mixed hot, hot pepper in some Crisco and coated this post and waited. Here came the squirrel and tried to jump up to the first branch of the hook. He started sliding down the pole. He would try again and slide again. Finally he realized that he had something slick on his feet and it must have been burning a little because he would stand upright and shake both front paws in the air like he was trying to shake it off. Then he decided to wash his paws, and starting to shake his head to get the heat out of his mouth. I laughed till I cried. I'm not sure if it kept that one for coming back but it was sure entertaining. There were so many more to take the place of it that scaring one off didn't make much difference. In the last few years we haven't had as many so someone is probably giving them more that spicy feet. There are so many walnut trees in our neighborhood that they have plenty of food and my neighbor keeps corn out for them. Also, they aren't as bad about getting into attics here because there are so many huge trees. In southern Oklahoma they drove us crazy by getting into the attic. My biggest problem with them is digging up all the walnut trees they plant.

Judging from what I am reading, you are encountering creeping frost. Elevating something as little as 4 feet can make a difference of having frost damage or no frost damage. Look around your yard or neighborhood and see if anything else is frost damaged. If it is see if the damage stops at certain height. If it does that is the height you need your outside frost sensitive plants to be higher than. Frost normally arrives early morning when most are normally asleep. It looks like a creeping cloud hugging the ground. If you ever seen the Charlton Heston movie "Moses" it looks like the" angel of death" that descending from the night sky. To a frost sensitive plant the analogy certainly applies.

OK. Hang on a minute. You are planning ahead. You may need water and I guess, don't have a bath tub. You have stored water. You have a very good wood stove that you apparently don't use. If it isn't in regular use, the flue certainly doesn't need cleaning except for a possible check to look for a bird nest if the flue cap is not a screened cap. You could even light some newspaper and a few little sticks to check instead of actually looking. You don't likely need a season of wood, but only enough for a few days. If you needed more and strength is really an issue, you likely would have more issues that would overwhelm your situation and rescue would be a better approach. The simple solution is to find someone to provide a pile of wood. You could buy it, but if cost is an issue, many people have extra scrap or cut wood and if you can find a friend with a pick up truck, you would likely be in business. The wood does have to be cut small enough to fit into the stove! Get a tarp to protect the wood. Build a test fire to make sure you can run the Lopi. You could also plan ahead and check your water heater drain to see if the drain will actually let water out into a pan (easier than getting those containers).