Nov 27, 2019 3 min read

As I write this, the sun is shining and the temperature is soaring into the upper 50s, which is pretty mild for late November.

I’m mustering the energy to go outside and tackle the layer of leaves that blankets the lawn once again. Haven’t I done this before once or twice? Isn’t it a bit late in the season to be raking leaves? After all, Thanksgiving is so late this year (as all of the retailers continue to remind us to get us into the stores), and December is just a few days away.

I thought I was done battling the leaves. Last week when the temperature inched just above 50, I raked up a few piles of leaves behind my house and then fired up my trusty lawnmower and mulched up the ones on the front lawn. Perfect. Not a leaf left in sight, and I ran all of the gasoline out of my lawnmower so it will be ready to sit and rest over the winter. It rained late that night and when I woke up the next morning, I looked outside and sighed. My beautiful, leaf-free lawn was littered with all of the leaves from my neighbor’s tree across the street and my other neighbor’s tree to the back. Ugh. Can’t I construct a big dome over my house to keep out other leaves that blow down the street? Or perhaps I can just blow all of my trees’ leaves on down the street to another lawn?

Getting rid of all of the leaves is easier than ever now though, thanks to the wonderful folks who drive the city truck around and vacuum them all up once in a while. No more raking and stuffing bag after bag full of leaves for me. Now, what I can’t mulch up I simply move toward the curb with my trusty leaf blower and leave in a nice, neat line for the leaf elves to remove. I’m not quite sure how often the leaf elves make their rounds, but I’m betting it won’t be between today’s leaf herding and tomorrow’s 45-mph wind gusts.

Will it be a waste of time to round them up only to see them swirling in the wind tomorrow? I’ll take my chances. I have just enough gasoline left in the gas can for one more mulching pass. Hopefully, this will be the last leaf roundup of the season. Two of my trees and both of my neighbors’ trees are now bare, but I still have one last tree holding onto its brown leaves. I’m betting it will wait to drop them until after I finish raking today.

If so, maybe tomorrow’s wind gusts will blow them right out of my yard.

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.