Day 1.282: Being rakish

These are the trees in our front yard as they looked a week ago. Roll the mouse over to see how they looked yesterday.

I hope you noticed two things: a lot of leaves have come down and there are a lot still up there.

I spent a good hour or so yesterday morning, and another one this afternoon raking leaves. There is now a respectable pile by the road - I want to jump in it was Exile #3's appreciative comment. If we're not too late getting out for the bus in the morning she may well do so.

One good thing about raking by hand in the autumn is that it's a chance to find the summer toys left in the yard - today I rescued a wooden block, a pair of sunglasses, a tennis ball and another rake from being buried first in leaves then - if they're lucky - by snow. It hasn't happened the last couple of winters, but a covering of snow from before the leaves are collected until the spring is not unheard-of around here.

I've been using the fabric from our gazebo - that finally succumbed to an old injury during the pack-up from Exile #4's birthday party - as a transporter for leaves this year. It's very effective. Yesterday I thought that there were so many leaves falling, that I could simply avoid all the raking like this:



It didn't catch many leaves, but it did dry out nicely caught between the sun and the warm drive.