Leaves

11/7/2015

Yesterday I was on leaf pickup detail again.  Jeff's job in the handling of leaves is to blow them into a pile, which looks easy (but probably isn't) to me.  My job is to pick up said leaves and stuff them into compost brown bags.  Picking up is time consuming and hard on the back.

Yesterday I filled three bags of leaves, which was only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  I could have raked leaves for hours, but gave up after two hours, feeling that I had done my best to pick up the ever blowing and wandering leaves.

I took a breather in the morning sun before returning to the never ending task!  As I leaned my head back in my chair, I gaze up into our 29 year old oak tree.  The tree is majestic to look at.  One half of the tree is nearly bare of leaves.  The other half still has many more leaves to fall - unfortunately.

While I was catching my breath, I watched as a solo leaf fell to the ground.  Why does that leaf fall off the tree, but others leaves on the same branch do not.  Mother Nature surely knows more about leaves dropping than I do.

Until we have our first frost, the routine of getting the leaves into a pile and picking them up will be almost a daily chore.  The wind yesterday blew leaves from our yard, into the street as well as the neighbor's yards.  I had to ask myself, how obligated did I feel to pick up leaves in your neighbor's yard that I know came from our tree.

We want to be a good neighbor, so more often than not, Jeff will blow leaves from the street and other yards to be considerate.  The wind was blowing yesterday, and as I sat in the sunshine of a beautiful fall day, I watched leaves gather on the driveway where I had just been working.

When we planted this tree in 1986, we couldn't have imagined back then how such a small tree could grow to it's present size.

Today is a new day and while I'm typing, I can see individual leaves falling to the ground.  I could be on leaf duty today, but I choose not to.  If I wait until tomorrow, the number of leaves to be picked up will increase only slightly.

Today is National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day.

P