On a quiet morning when the sun is rising, the only audible sounds are those of rustling leaves and the clock bell ringing. The dry, crisp air and descending temperatures confirm what the calendar has been saying for weeks: fall is here.

As the days get shorter and the cold settles in, the grounds crew is preparing for the winter just like everyone else. The 6-foot red cannas and the broadleaf elephant ears have been lopped off, and the beds that once held purple and green strobilanthes are empty.

The rose bushes surrounding the evergreen in front of the library have been fenced in and are halfway covered with leaves, insulating them for the winter.

The outdoor furniture has been taken inside. Plant bulbs are being placed in crates for storage. Other plants are being brought to their cold weather home, in the greenhouse.

Winterizing the campus requires not only a great deal of time but also a decent bit of good fortune. Much of the work that the grounds crew has to take care of requires clear, fair weather days.

One of the biggest tasks of the fall is picking up the leaves. With a campus as large as ours, there is a heavy reliance on leaf vacuums to speed up the process. When the leaves get wet, though, the machines don’t work because the leaves become saturated, heavy and have a tendency to cling together. It requires nice days to be able to pick them all up quickly and efficiently.

It doesn’t help much that they continue falling, either.

While much of the winterizing process involves removing plant life, there are also new things being planted in the fall. The grounds crew has planted 200 mums, split up between the stadium hillside and the bed on the corner of King and Claremont. Chrysanthemums are heartier than most plants and last through at least three or four frosts.

Their purple and yellow accents are among the final colors left on campus, aside from the brown of the fallen leaves.

The grounds crew has also planted 30 trees so far this fall, with another 30 ready to be put in.

They are also halfway through planting 10,000 tulip bulbs that are being placed this fall, tulips that will adorn the areas around Founders Hall for the spring commencement.

There’s not much you can do to avoid the fleeting sense of death in the fall, though.

“The mums kind of help…but otherwise we just have to make sure that all the sidewalks are edged,” said Toby White, a member of the grounds crew. “Otherwise, [we] just keep the leaves cleaned up…cleanliness is the main thing in the fall.”

In the next few weeks, the Christmas lights will go up. The wreath will be placed on the point of the chapel. And before we know it, winter will be here, snow included.

To get ready for that, the grounds crew has to switch over their equipment. Lawnmowers get cabs and snowbrushes, trucks get salt spreaders and plows, and all of the stored mulch has to be used up to make room for salt.

Most important, the grounds crew has to make sure that all of the equipment works before the snow comes. Those snowy days are the hardest for the grounds crew, because of the long hours and persistence that is required to make it through.

There’s always a silver lining, though. Grounds crew member Andy Mills’ favorite part about winter is a fresh snow, even when snow is what causes the crew to have to work for months on end.

“[With] a new snow, everything looks so pure,” he said. “It kind of covers up the ugliness of winter for a while.”