The Battle Is Fierce

Today we are 45 days into Fall, which, according to my calculations is almost, or maybe is exactly, halfway through the season.

As I write this, the husband/lover/handler of manly large tools and I are waging a difficult skirmish with the falling leaves of all the trees and bushes in our yard, and with a majority of the neighbors' leaves too.

Mostly, they fall.
Mostly, I watch.
Mostly, he manhandles his manly leaf-blowing apparatus, corralling our leaves into piles prior to street cleaning day, which happens at 8:00 AM every Monday morning.

Starting the piles

The trick is to contain those piles until the optimal time for pushing them out into the gutter.  However, as all leaf rakers know, it is hard to predict the winds.  Optimally, the piles get pushed out into the gutter Sunday evening, when, hopefully, there will be no overnight winds.

These leaves fell over the fence into our yard from the neighbor's tree.

It is all a guessing game as to when is the best time to wage this battle.  If it is windy, the piles disperse (still in our yard somewhere as it is fully fenced in).  If it is rainy, the blower won't blow them.  No matter what the conditions, by 5:00 PM Sunday, it is dark and by then the battle has been won or lost.

I find it interesting how each tree has its own time table.  Notice in the next photo how the neighbor's tree has completely dropped its leaves, yet our tree is still mostly full.

One tree full, another tree bare.

We have a system for keeping our waterfalls mostly free of leaves, so that the falling leaves do not clog up the water flow.  In the Fall before the leaves start dropping, we cover it with a light net.  From this distance the net cannot be easily seen.

However, a closer view shows the netting and the catching of leaves.  Frankly, it would be a mess to try to keep those waterfalls cleaned out without the net covering.

Right now, it just seems as if there are leaves EVERYWHERE, and so the battle wages.

I've got a pretty good feeling, based on past history, that we're gonna win this one.