Leaf Season

There's a lot I like about the fall - the comfortable days, the cool nights, the (mostly) dry air. And even though I'm colorblind, I also love the colors of fall. But when it comes to the colors of fall, I like the it better when these colors are not all over my lawn. 

It's not that I'm picky about my lawn - not by a long shot. It's that I don't like raking leaves. Thankfully, my lawn is about the size of a living room rug. But even still, raking leaves is not one of my all-time favorite activities.

The weekend before last, Rachael and Sam raked the front lawn clean. This resulted in two, maybe three tarp-loads of leaves which the three of us hauled down the street, into the woods. When all was done, the lawn looked great... for about three days. Then, the remaining leaves fell. Here's what my lawn looked like by the following weekend...

Sam and I spent a good portion of Saturday raking up this Act II. It resulted in another four tarp-loads of leaves being hauled into the woods. Maybe it was five loads. I'm a little hazy from the physical exertion.

I have no one to blame but myself for this leaf problem on my front lawn. The tree these leaves fall from is, after all, mine. So as I might like to blame someone else, it's blatantly my own fault.

What I will complain about, freely and often, are all of the leaves in my backyard. I own no leaf-bearing trees in my backyard. Yet every year, I rake about twice as many leaves out back as I do out front.

This is largely due, maybe even exclusively due, to my neighbor's massive Norwegian maple tree which sits about five feet from our property line. 

I'm told this type of tree is invasive, which I can attest to - at least when it comes to the amount of leaves invading my yard. To make matters even worse, this tree (which doesn't even belong to me, as I think I mentioned) doesn't have to good sense to drop all it's leaves at the same time as the more considerate red maple out front. 

Instead, this tree waits until all the front yard leaves are raked and gone and then it starts letting go - thus prolonging my leaf-raking agony.  Because it waits so long, it often drops leaves right up to, and sometimes even after, the first snow. Here's a picture I took a few years ago...

Pretty, right? Now think about raking this wet, semi-frozen mess off my tiny back lawn. Even better, think about hauling multiple tarp-loads of these wet, semi-frozen, heavy bundles of nature to the woods at the end of my street.

Even though I more than slightly resent raking the profuse amount of leaves from a tree that doesn't even belong to me, I still like the fall. I just wish there was a little less of it all over my lawn.