What We “Leaf” Behind
One of the nice things about being an adult and actually having a house is that you get to decide just how much you need to do upkeep on it.
Actually, check that: One of the nice things about being an adult and actually having a house is that you AND your significant other get to decide just how much you need to do upkeep on it.
When we had the lawn service, they usually came out once a week to keep everything ship-shape. Now that I have taken over lawncare duties that time frame has been adjusted ever so slightly to, oh, say, once a season.
This was my first year of total yard control when it came to raking leaves, so I wanted to, ahem, “branch out” a bit in terms of my options. A few weeks ago I needed to rake the leaves so I could cut the grass, and the Internet (beacon of truth and authenticity that it is) assured me that it was actually better for the lawn to just not pick up the leaves. Let the nutrients get reabsorbed by the soil! Save money on leaf bags! So I went out on a limb (heh) and tried just using the lawn mower to mulch the leaves much like I mulched the grass. What could go wrong?
To be fair, the leaves were shredded, but not so fine as to blend in. In fact, it sort of looked like I had laid down some carpet liner across the entire backyard. But that was fine! I had tried this in the backyard on purpose because nobody else was going to see it.
Still, for the front lawn, I decided to “leaf” well enough alone and just use the rake.
Yesterday, though, the backyard got its proper treatment. And the catalyst was our beloved Chaos Gremlin, Gracie.
After Gracie and I got back from piano practice, she decided that she wanted to play outside. In particular, to play in a leaf pile.
“Sure you can play in some leaf piles, but we don’t have any right now sweetie,” I told her.
“That’s okay. I’ll make some. Do we have a rake I can use?” she innocently asked.
“...absolutely we have a rake you can use!”
So I opened the garage/shed/hermit-shack-thingy and gave her the rake. It was a beautiful day, just late morning, bright and sunny, and even though it was only in the high 40s, there wasn’t really a breeze, so everything was rather nice, especially in a good hoodie. Perfect day for some unregulated child labor! Florida would be so envious!
Gracie dashed off to perform her exuberant yard work and I went inside; I figured that I would go out in about an hour or so. That way Gracie had time to play, I could throw my hoodie in the wash, and then I would send her inside for lunch while I finished the yard. It was supposed to rain in the evening, so I wanted to get the leaves in bags before then.
“Gracie is outside?” May asked when I came in.
“Yeah, she wants to play in some leaf piles, so she is actually raking leaves to make them.”
“Okay, that reminded me I wanted to get outside to set up the bird feeders. I’ll be back in a minute.” She donned her hoodie and went outside to brave the perfect fall day while I expertly tossed my own hoodie into the washer. I went downstairs to do some writing, but through my back window, I could see the fruits of Gracie’s eager efforts… “piling” up.
I am in rare form today, I admit.
Anyway, besides my industrious daughter, my wife had a change of heart and rather than just set up the birdfeeders, she was picking up sticks–whether or not she was counting 5, 6 at the time is unknown, but I’m pretty she wasn’t otherwise a hoard of kids would have been screaming “Six seven!” from everywhere.
Regardless, I was suddenly struck with inspiration to join them outside. I thought, how often do we get a chance to all be outside at the same time, doing something? It was just something I wanted to be part of. In fact, you might even say that I was indeed going to [puts on dark sunglasses] “fall” for this.
[Insert “The Who” musical scream here.]
ANYWAYS, I grabbed my back-up hoodie with the busted zipper; I wasn’t worried about closing it, though, as I knew in about 9.3 minutes my out-of-shape self would be sweating and taking it off anyway. I went outside and immediately added shareholder value by directing May to fetch me a pushbroom to clear the deck with. She rolled her eyes but still went off; however, after about 5 minutes she had not returned, and I knew that as cluttered as our garage/shed/hermit-shack-thingy was, it had not yet reached the critical mass of an event horizon, so I went to see what the hold up was.
Turns out, she was busy reading the instruction manual for a leafblower which I had no idea existed. May assured me that it has been there for years and was not, as I first reasoned, the product of spontaneous creation. May had used it in the past, and apparently the device was not only a leaf blower, but also had a vacuum setting; I’m guessing that the designer was a big fan of Megamaid. (Shout out for anyone who gets that reference.)
And hence, the Plotecher land care specialists were in full force: May took charge of the leafblower, I worked on using the pushbroom and rake, and Gracie was thoroughly inspecting leaf piles for their ability to absorb her kinetic energy.
At one point, I caught sight of Gracie emerging from a leaf pile, happily laughing and giggling with leaves sticking out from her hair and clinging to her clothes and she sprang up and jumped around, just reveling in the act of playing with leaves in a way that only kids can really pull off. I sighed with contentment at this heartwarming sight, and told her with fatherly pride and love, “You are definitely taking a shower tonight.”
All told, we, the trio of tiny terraformers, managed to get the whole yard done in a couple of hours thanks to my leaf bagging expertise, May’s focus on gathering up all of the twigs and sticks too large to bag, and Gracie pretending to be a pirate captain as she climbed a tree (I’m sure it was boosting our morale or something). In the end, we bagged and tagged a dozen leaf bags, all lined up against the house and ready to be forgotten until right after the yard waste pick-up date.
Triumphant in our yard conquest, we returned inside. The only bad news was that my shoulder and collarbone were really bothering me, so much so that I needed an Advil (which didn’t do much). I will probably worry about that more later, but for now, I am just going to enjoy sitting here, looking out the window at the backyard and thinking about the quality family time we all shared.
I guess you could say I’m just …raking in the memories.
…Okay, I’ll stop now.