My yearly battle

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the cool crisp air, the birds at the feeders,or migrating overhead, to watch the leaf colors change, to watch the leaves flutter to the ground as if raining color ,and the way the breeze pushes the grounded leaves across the yard or roads...
Its like a free all you can eat buffet for my eyes.

Having lived here 6 years now, On a large property, full of trees ,my eyes feast on the leaf festival.

They feast on the beauty of fall, of watching the leaves dance and flow in all their colors.

Yet, there is also an awful inward cringe, most comparable to a grand mal epileptic seizure.

Why , you ask, would I possibly cringe so horribly at one of my favorite spectacles of nature?

Because, living on a large wooded property, with many many trees, there is an enormous, never ending battle of keeping the leaves under control!

Those who know me well will say I am silly, and somewhat obsessive compulsive about the leaves here. I will not argue that fact. I am. and its atrocious. There IS reasoning behind the obsession though.

** when we go outside, leaves on the walkway and patio tend to get as slick as ice at times.

**the leaves also cluster dangerously near our fire pit.

** when the children go to their playground they are wading through leaves , mid calf, to get to toys they have to literally dig out.

**The leaves pile up against the house, which is heaven for one of my other compulsive behaviors- spiders. said spiders find cozy homes in the leaves against the house, but when it gets too cold, they migrate- into the house.

**I have a cat- an indoor/outdoor cat. This is very convenient, as I have no need for nasty litter boxes. He uses the leaves. This is not the only issue the cat brings to the leaf madness. When its nice and cool out, the cat is a very skilled hunter. he catches a variety of critters, mice, squirrels, small birds. He has his way with them, and stashes them- in the leaves. both of these factors are a true horror when my kids decide they want to play in the leaves.

**we have water drainage routes that get horrible clogged with leaves that get washed into them- when these water routes get too full and it rains really hard, we have a major problem.

So, yes. I have developed a habit as strong as smoking- to rake leaves.
What makes people believe I am insane, we have five acres of treed property.
That is ALOT of leaves people!

In a single day, enough leaves fall to completely cover the playground, and the walkways.
I go out and rake these areas- which, mind you, are large enough to take up to three hours.

within roughly 3 hours of completing the task- these areas are totally covered again.
the next day, i do it again.

on weekends, you may find a crazy sight of a petite woman, 5 feet roughly 110lbs, hunched under the massive weight of a 60 lb leaf blower. Lugging it up and down the slopes of the yard, pushing piles of leaves half as tall as she is, into a ditch area, where the leaves are piled as tall as she is.

Madness ,I tell you.

The fun about the leaf blower- besides the fact it weighs about half what I do, its tortuously loud, yet blows at a rate hard enough to knock a person over- is that because it is so heavy for me, I cannot put it on myself while it is running. and of course, there is no way to start it while on my back. So the blower is reserved for weekends, when there is another adult available , not only to start it up and put it on me, but also to help me get up should I slip on one of the hills . It's a rare event, that I fall, but I've been told I could win the jackpot on America's Funniest Videos, because I have the likeness of a turtle stuck on its back. Very cute.

For that reason, I am usually restricted to use the old fashioned way. The ol trusty rake.
I have become a true Pro at choosing the perfect rakes.
And I have also become a master at wearing the highest "guaranteed-not-to-break" rakes down to the point they break. (I sadly even have a 'rake fund' set aide for the replacement rakes to be bought each year)
We always have a collection of rakes. There are at least 5 available at any time.

Some weekends it is so beautiful out, I'll use the rake just for the exercise.As people come to visit, I get helpers. This is an odd scene as well. Friends will come to visit, most Husbands work pals, and will see me out there raking like a lunatic.
"how hard can it be- she's got alot of work to do... I can knock that area out for her in no time."
Lessons learned very quickly- its NOT as easy as it looks to rake a layer of leaves as high as your knees. It takes much longer than you'd think, and puts a hell of a strain on the body.
Yet these guys try.
I have out-raked groups of muscular, fully grown men in the matter of an hour. And they do NOT get away with this easily.
I get the fun of taunting them.
"are you serious? I'm half your size, a quarter of your weight, and I've been out here all day! you're going to let a cheezy half hour beat you? you WIMP!"
which is usually met with, "yes, I'm a wimp" and a search for Husband with a cold beer.

My children have mini-rakes.
They also take great pride in being able to rake with Mommy.
I don't expect them to last long, as even the mini rake is almost twice the size of my son, but, to be honest, there are some days they last longer than some of the grown men.

a battle it is, yet still amusing.


**note- there will be pictures added to many of these posts soon, I hope to show the true dept of the humor in the insanity I share here..... keep checking back!