They are waiting....

Oh lordy. Here it comes. The day I absolutely dread. Do you know what is hiding under all that?

Our backyard.

365 days a year. The ONE day stands out for the most unpleasant experience of gathering up all of these leaves and either bagging them up, or trekking them all the way down to the bank of the small river that is just off in the distance. The last few years have each been something different:

2003 I loaded them all up on to a big tarp and pulled them to the river bank.
2004 I bagged them all up. Final tally: 35 bags of leaves. And one very sore body. 2005 Amanda's Mom gave me a leaf blower/vacuum which worked pretty well, but it was a lot of stop and go throughout the day. It did cut the bags down to about 18 bags, so that part was nice.
2006, Well, lets just say that I was bad. I let them hang out through out the entire winter and by the time the wind and snow all it its way with the leaves, there was only about a couple of bags to take care of in the late winter/early spring. But I did feel bad because the leaves were all in my backyard neighbors fence, so this year, its back to picking them up in November.

2007, well, I think I'm going old school and just piling them all up on the tarp and hauling them down to the river. Seems to work pretty well, nobody has any problem with it, and the leaves decompose nicely during the winter and don't cause any hazard. I think the neighbors don't complain because they feel sorry for me. :)

Hopefully this year Ella will be able to help me and make for some fun family time and pictures. I'm sure she's going to want to jump in a few piles!