The battle of the leaves

Fall is a pretty kick-ass season. The air is crisp. The stores are full of costumes - some especially scandalous ones for the ladies. The colors seem more vibrant. And the leaves are falling. For the past five or six years I've had a love-hate relationship with those falling leaves. For the first couple years I simp ly chopped the hell ot ouf them with my shitty old lawn mower and let things be. Then the third year of owning our house the fallen leaves seemed thicker than usual. I raked them that year and haphazardly composted them in my garden. The fourth year I had my shiny new lawnmower complete with a bagger and after using it in mulcher mode a couple of times I bagged most everything from my front yard the final few mowings.

Then this year happened. Despite my pre-planning consisting of bagging my front lawn beginning back in early September when the go-getters decided to hit the ground, I hit a thick leafy wall by the last week of Sepember.

I mulched, bagged and raked all in the course of one week but with only a tiny percentage of the leave having fallen I knew I was fucked and threw in the towel.

I've now gone about two weeks without mowing my front yard but my old lady, full of good intentions, raked things up midway through last week. That progress was quickly covered by another thick blanket of fallen leaves. Sure, they made for a kick-ass playground last weekend for the daughter but with nicely manicured lawns all around my home, I realized last night that those fucking leaves had to go.

Below is the situation I was greeted with when I arrived home from the local coal mine last night.
Before the supper bell rang I had corralled this massive pile of leaves and nearly broken my rake no less than 15 times but had only reached the front portion of my narrow side yard. Combine the hefty weight load of a yard full of leaves and a child insistent on playing in this fucking huge pile of leaves and what you are left with is one tired guy.
But I wasn't done. I was determined to land this hugetastic mountain of annoying leaves in the far back corner of my yard and eventually compact them in to my compost bin and be done with the most annoying part of fall. This battle would be won if it killed me but I WOULD finish it by 7 PM because I get cranky if I miss my stories.

To wrap up this story before you slip in to a coma, the leaves lost their battle. Their fallen brothers and sisters lie scattered across the front, side and back yards but the majority of their colorful army of leaves are messily piled in a massive mountain in the back yard alongside the daughter's swing set. Mark my words: the leave swill rue the day they fell on my lawn and they will become rich, black compost because I own them. I own those leaves.