Pine needle carpet

Yesterday Mom and I went in search of pine needles. About half of the garden has been covered in mulched pine needles as a walkway/weed barrier. But as we're moving into winter and our heavy rain season all that bare dirt is going to get really, really muddy. So the pine needles also serve as mud protection for the boots! I think it looks pretty good. It sure makes the cover crop green stand out! Another benefit of using needle's is there own wind gust protection. Pine needles interlock with each other when they get onto the ground, thus making them really hard to blow around in the wind. We had thought about using straw in the walk way, but I did an experiment last spring using straw as a mulch. Our heavy winds just blew it way. I'd like to find a mulch for the front yard butterfly/bee garden but I think I'll stick with the pine needs. The problem is finding them in mass quantity. See I don't want to go to a park and rake for hours just to get a small pile of them. Mom and I just drove around the back country roads until we found a strip of pine needles that looked really thick from the tree's hanging over the road. Then we collected the needles. We got 6 full tarps, and stuffed 2 at a time into the back of the Prius. I really need to remember to take pictures of that kinda thing. Then laid it out onto the bare garden dirt. The chickens had fun, scratching though it. Or playing keep away with this new cool pine needle. They really are silly! We're supposed to get winds 25 mph sustained to 45 mph gusts today. Ugh!