Autumn Leaves

We have several trees in our yard, as do a lot of people in the community in which we live.  Enough so that the city is nice enough to go around all the residential neighborhoods twice a year and collect the leaves and tree branches from pruning.  All the residents have to do is pile them all neatly out by the curb.  The city does this in two rounds, once for leaves, garden clippings, and grass clippings and again for the branches and such "brush".  It's a very nice and convenient service but it does create a bit of a contest every year; will the trees drop all their leaves in time for us to get them raked and piled at the curb in time for the pick up?  Some years we get help from various kids and grandkids, other years we end up doing it by ourselves. Because we have several trees in our yard, one of which holds a bazillion leaves, getting them all raked can be a bit of work. It's an annual ritual.  But the backyard is not as urgent because we just rake those leaves into the garden space.  We can do that at our convenience.  It's the front yard where we race to get what leaves fall done in time for the pick-up.

We have one tree that is the major contributor, it holds lots and lots of leaves.

It's also tall so its leaves fall all over the whole front yard.

But the nice thing about this year was that by the time the weather dried out enough that we could rake, that big tree had lost most of its leaves.  And the city still hadn't been by.  So we got out there and got busy.  Took us a couple of hours but we got all the front lawn done, all the leaves out to the curb.

This morning the city finally came by.  I had to wonder if they had moved the date back because of the wet weather we'd had.  The pick up date had been moved back twice, if they had stuck with the first date we'd have missed it.

As it was, we got it all done.  So now the leaves in front are gone and the front yard is ready for winter.  It's always nice to have it all done and the leaves gone.  I like that.