Leaf Season

At our last house we only had one tree (yes one!) on our property.  There were shrubs and landscape bushes on the surrounding properties but we only had one tree.  It dropped its leaves at its base and then they almost immediately blew away (down the hill and onto our neighbors' properties...sorry guys!)  Our new house and street is very leafy.  Leafy is an understatement.  The leaves were ankle deep in the back yard and in the front the gutters on the street were clogged with leaves before the street sweeper came.

I haven't spent a lot of time on leaf management in my life.  We used to make a half effort at raking when I was a kid but usually ended up mulching them up with the lawn mower.  In college we used to have to rake the yard at our sorority house which was generally a fun group activity where neighboring fraternity friends would show up to help.  The greek houses used to save their leaves in garbage bags for future use pranking other houses.  So mature!  It was always fun to wake up to a pile of leaves on your front step.

Justin is very good at leaf management.  We took care of it on Sunday afternoon with the help of the kids.  Haha...but Ben actually was kind of helpful.

Look at these pictures!  You can hardly tell there were leaves there at all!

You can see the depth of the coverage inside the garden plot fence in the background.  

When it was finished we had filled two pickup boxes full.  And believe me...they were heavy, wet leaves.  

We finished just in time because it is now snowing!  An election day snowfall.  I can't wait to watch the news people on TV tonight as they all freak out over demographics and election results.  It won't be as fun as a presidential year but I still look forward to it.  North Dakota is in the spotlight this year and one of my old childhood friends is running for a local office.  It will be exciting.