Moving into Winter

I have always enjoyed fall. I am one of those strange people who actually enjoys raking the leaves and preparing the garden for winter. Well, this year, I was actually too busy to do my usual routine because of classes and a growing list of clients with due dates. So I brought four high school students and an adult from my church who are raising funds to travel to Mexico next spring break. I thought, hard work for kids, to earn money to travel to do hard work in Mexico helping others. I also got a tax break. How great was that. Anyway, they managed to put together 21 bags of leaves and I don't even know how many bundles of branches (they cut down a bunch of shrubs in my bag yard so I might have a tiny window of sun next year.) While this was great, I had missed out on my time out in the good Lord's creation.

So last night, before my husband was off to his parents today for the opening of deer season, I managed to convince him to take a 10 minute walk around the block. The air was perfect: crisp but not so cold that you needed a coat and gloves; cold enough that I wanted to snuggle close, but not so cold that you couldn't hold hands because they would get numb. Just perfect. So we walked on the sidewalks around our neighborhood through all the leaves that others haven't cleaned up. Now don't think that I have lazy neighbors. We just have had an interested fall for leaf cleanup. First it was unseasonably warm (70s in October); then we got rain and wind that tore the leaves off the trees on the weekends, then the time change in November which meant that it was dark when you went to work and dark when you came home from work, and more rain and cold (30s and 40s) on the weekends. Not everyone has a church group doing work to fundraise for a cause.

That said, I looked out into my backyard this morning and realized that one of my trees had not previously let go of all of its leaves and was dumping all over my beautiful backyard. Oh, and I was reminded that I still had TONS of branches that needed to get collected and recycled. I was amazed how much there still was to do. How did that happen? Unfortunately, I have class again tomorrow (the last one until 2009) and will be at church from dawn until dusk on Sunday, with work to do in the evenings and on Sunday afternoon. Ah, well. Perhaps I shall bring them back in the spring.