Do You Hear What I Hear?

Gentlemen (women:0) Start your engines.




My Hubby and neighbor who's behind the bush in the upper right-hand corner (dang! I should know his name) - engaging the enemy.


Our neighbor, Irv. Yep. Leaf blowing.



I only glimpse Deb a few times a year through the hemlocks. She's chasing leaves, too.




I say a little prayer when our neighbor, Rick, gets on that danged roof.



I think I heard next years leaf buds sniggering at the futility of our efforts.




Do you hear it? I did. Even with ear protection: Sniggering.
BTW - that's a buckeye necklace. Big game day :0)


Thirty years ago we moved into a development called Lincoln WOODS. We'd lived in Denver during the first part of our marriage. There weren't many trees and heck - those prairie/foothill winds made short work of leaf-blowing.

Well. The friendly shade-providing trees around our Midwestern home are now 30 years older and bigger and leafier. My hubby and I are also 30 years older, bigger and . . . . well, bigger.

The trees seem to be doing fine. In fact I think I hear them sniggering up there as they watch us mortals cleaning up the shavings from the floor beneath their summer's work bench. Listen. Do you hear it?

Here's a great Robert Frost poem about leaf raking. At the literal level - it records something of the nature of the big Leaf Roundup.


Gathering Leaves


Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?



Robert Frost

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