An act of kindness kills a post, but saves my Saturday

Every fall, like so many other homeowning saps around the world, I have the task of raking leaves two or three times. I sometimes have to do this in the spring, too, because of the stubborness of oak leaves.

My lot is surrounded by trees and they dump leaves and needles and cones and seeds all over the place. A crunchy brown blanket covers everything. The leaves must be removed or the grass will die and the forest will take over my lawn. Mulching works in the early stages, but after a nice windy day, mulching does nothing but make the big leaves little. Everything is still covered in that dusty reddish brown.

To tackle this task, I have a very large rake, a backpack leaf blower, and a monstrous blue tarpaulin that is used exclusively for leaf removal. Because I am surrounded by woods, I merely have to cart the leaves off into them. No bagging, no burning, no leaving them in the ditch for the county to pick up.

But I have a large yard and up until this year, I worked alone. The kids are finally old and strong enough to really help and not hinder the completion of this task.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived home this evening and was met outside by the family (Monica was going with me to the library.) I could see hints of grass in the lights from the house, my headlights show on a black driveway, when I got out of the car I didn't hear any crunching sounds. My family was outside hinting that they worked the whole afternoon raking my fairly large front yard. No way.

Not that they couldn't, but why would they? Then I thought: Jocelyn paid someone to do work that I can do, that I need to do. For some reason, this bothered me. I hate raking leaves, but it is my responsibility, therefore if anyone decides to hire someone to do the chore, that person should be me.

But they were all laughing.

It turns out that my neighbor rented one of the huge hurricane force wind generating blowers. After he did his smaller yard in about 10 minutes, he came over and I did my large yard in about 15 minutes...just because he felt like it. Then he crossed the street to help our neighbor do his gigantic yard.

Of course I said, "Did he do the backyard, too?"

"I knew he would say that!" Monica blurted.

What did we give him for doing this? I was thinking splitting the rental cost. (He has borrowed my power washer before. I'm so neighborly.) Instead he wanted a glass of water.

Jocelyn gave him that and promised a batch of her Christmas cookies.

I was planning a big post about a family working together to accomplish a task and have a little fun at the same time. So much for that.

Thanks Mike for the leaf cleanup. Where were you over the weekend when I installed that shower door?