Make Like a Tree and, er, Leave
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The story I shared with you last Friday (On Frameworks… and Lawn Care) about our across-the-street neighbor in Greenville, South Carolina just wouldn’t be complete without telling you this one, too. If you haven’t read the Frameworks post, please do. No worries; I’ll wait.
You remember I mentioned the, uh, leaves, right? Good gosh, we’re talkin’ leaves – mounds and mounds of ‘em! I found it absolutely amazing the trees could actually, you know, hold that many leaves without falling over! Eventually, Mrs. MZM and I bowed to the inevitable and set aside an hour one Saturday morning to rake them all up. Hmph; an hour, indeed.
We started in the front yard, raking them into piles to be eventually collected and bagged for pickup. Naturally, being complete neophytes to the fine art of raking leaves, we underestimated drastically the time it would take to do the job.
Oh, it started out well enough; we managed to make quite a few piles all over the place; very artful, I must say. The problem, of course (for those of you who don’t know), is that leaves have a little-known property (by which I mean, we didn’t know) that when piled up, they have a tendency to, er, multiply. Must be related to rabbits, I guess.
Anyway, before too long, we had already gone through the entire box of large leaf bags purchased for the event (20 bags – gone!) and had barely managed to rake half the front yard! Yikes; the back yard was even bigger, too! Our pile of bags in the roadside ditch was getting to be quite impressive, too (resembling something along the lines of the Great Wall of China).
By now the entire morning had come and gone (and was, alas, but a distant memory). To illustrate how I was beginning to feel about the whole endeavor, I began to rack my brain for a plausible excuse to fall down dramatically in simulated pain. I’m ashamed to admit it, but all kinds of ridiculous things crossed my mind.
Could I convincingly fake chest pains? Naw; too serious. How about a turned ankle? Hmmm… now that had possibilities. What about that trick knee? Incipient Rheumatism? Warts? Maybe I could *cough*cough* prompt a drafting emergency at work (I was a piping designer back then). You can see I was getting desperate; anything to avoid the thought of raking all those… leaves.
Well, along about mid-afternoon, our neighbor across the street strolled over (in Texas, we would have said he moseyed over). We gratefully took the opportunity to offer him a glass of lemonade and take a breather. He looked around a bit, then commented about how these leave sure were a pain, weren’t they? We allowed that they were definitely more than we bargained for, that’s for sure! Then he casually dropped the bombshell (sound of bomb falling…)
“I been watching you folks baggin’ these leaves all morning,” he told us, “and I was wonderin’… Why are you doing that? Didn’t you know the city will scoop ‘em up for you? All you have to do is pile ‘em up in that ditch over there, and they’ll take care of the rest.” (…sound of bomb exploding)
I’m almost positive a jury of our peers would have let us off…
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11 responses so far
Middle Zone Musings is a comfortable place to stop, have a cup of coffee, swap a few stories and share practical ideas for the real world. I don't ask for much, just a bit of your brain every now and then. Have a seat, take a load off, and relax...
Too funny, Bob! I do plenty of raking yearly, and mostly because I like the exercise involved. Believe it or not, I do snow as well, but try to get it in small doses before it has a chance to pile too high. I find that in addition to walking, this gives my upper body more opportunity to stay fit.
And, hey, the leaves do go to a pile in the front yard.
Could this be the difference between man and woman?
My wife would enjoy the raking and bagging as something to bring our family closer.
I on the other hand might suggest FIRE, FIRE, FIRE…(bevis&butthead-wink— (me to my wife) I know honey that’s just not funny–I am sorry I even thought of it).
Bob,
Your narrative would indicate that you newbies were the first to rake your yard (what were you thinking?) or you would have noticed your neighbors’ ditch leaves.
What you really needed to do was hire a bunch of neighbor kids to play in those leaf piles until they were thoroughly mulched and then you’d have had plenty of bags. Worked for me in those backwater places where burning and piling them in the street hadn’t been discovered.
Mike
you’re reinforcing my satisfaction w/ owning a condo unit… although it is fresh air and exercise. just not very fun exercise.
Robyn: Actually, a few months later I got to try shoveling snow for the first time in my life at the same house! Now that’s a workout!
Mike: The only problem with my plan was that Mrs. MZM is already “on” to me. So, nothing to do but just keep on doin’ it.
Mike D: Actually, we hadn’t noticed what the neighbors had been doing, so I guess it’s our fault for not being observant enough. But I like your mulching plan!
JC: Yeah, since this house, we’ve been in condos too… until now. Luckily the house we’re in now doesn’t have any trees to speak of. Or is it “sadly”? I do miss the fall colors!
Funny. In our neighborhood we seem to have a wind tunnel that blows directly into our yard, thus we get all the leaves from across the street. Our tree is the last to fall so we rake the entire fall season. My son loves it and I hate it. But, it is good exercise.
Unfortunately, the leaves fell so late this year that they picked up the leaves the same day we got snow. I was literally raking leaves in my snowman pajamas to beat the “leafman” and the snow plows.
Snowman pajamas? You and Mrs. MZM have a lot in common!
This is by far the funniest train of thought around leaves I have ever read. I have visions of various attacks on the blighters and rounding them up.
Like Pickel we seem to be in a wind tunnel and get our share of neighbours leaves - and other assorted debris ( we are a very untidy nation)but we also have a pickup from our city council in a suitably allocated “brown bin” to take them away. We are therefore spoilt I think
Thanks Robert. As always - made me smile
Jackie
Why thank you, Jackie! “Blighters”; that’s a good one!
Funny story. Just try and focus on the Zen aspect of raking leaves…(^^)
Howdy, Gabriella! “Zen”… is that something like “zoning out”? Hey, I do that all the time…