Lots of Lovely Leaves

Everyone agrees; autumn is beautiful. The colors are extraordinary, the temperatures delightful, the color of the sky clear and true and the smell of leaf smoke tantalizing. Why, oh why then can't we just leave the fallen leaves where they land?

Heaped up lovely lumps of gold, mounding in my front yard. They look just perfect but...when they are wet I slip and bust my rear, when they are wet they destroy my lawn, when the are wet they make mold and make my allergies scream. But when they are dry...they just blow on down the road. This is the American, rural way of life. Take care of it if it stays in your yard longer than a couple of days. Otherwise, just let the wind carry it on down the road, literally.

I have 3 large maples in my front yard, lots, and lots, and lots of leaves. In about a week we will have a Butler family whine-a-thon when I demand the leaves come up. As lazy as we are we will spend about an hour trying to figure out an easier way to move the leaves from the front lawn to the back field. Seems like just raking them up would suffice but, NO, we have to have a tarp and the lawn mower mowing over little hedgerows to make leave mulch which is so thick we have to rake it anyway. After about 3 hours of leaf wrangling we give up, rake it along the fence "to keep down the weeds next spring" and call it a day. We are pathetic and I have the pathetic lawn to prove it.

Oh well, I still love autum and maybe just maybe the wind will come up and blow all on down the road.