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.

A South Dakota view of the southwest metro

Apparently South Dakotans are jealous of the beauty and bounty that surrounds us lucky Minnesotans. It's the kind of crap we take for granted because we see it every day. Hills covered with trees (never mind the endless raking of leaves) because they have no leaves or hills in eastern South Dakota. They also have no humans but that's for another day. (Yes, I finally offended all 17 people in South Dakota, next stop, IOWA!)

The recap reads like a very condensed version of a grown-up roadtrip from Sioux Falls to Shakopee complete with a truckload of golf carts on their way to hibernate. The cargo, not so exciting, the pics, fairly decent.

In all seriousness, it was cool to see a photo of an actual sugarbeet. I hear that they used to be grown back in my homeland but I've never seen a real one or a photo of one until I read this story. Hey, the writer/reporter even offers up the video below but be warned, it's not much and it probably should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

As they usually do every three months or so, the seasons they are a changing.

This can be proven by the fact that on October 7th, just over a week ago, the temperature in this part of Minnesota reached about 90 degrees. This was followed up by a week of temperatures struggling to reach 50 degrees. and clouds that would make a Seattle transplant feel like they were home.

As I am writing this, the rain is coming down at a somewhat steady pace. It's not enough to run the car's wipers full time but it's the type of rain that your mom assumes would lead to a mean case of pneumonia is you were thick headed enough to venture outside for any amount of time without a proper rain slicker. Hell, I finally bought my first zip-up sweatshirt (a fashion statement in its own right) in more than 15 years about a month ago during our first cold snap. I had become accustomed to going from short sleeves to long sleeves to long sleeves with my minimal winter jacket. Yeah, I've even retired my winter ski jacket (no, I don't ski) except for the rare occasion when I am shoveling show for hours at a time which happened exactly twice last winter.

Maybe this year's abnormally cold (or is it just normal) fall weather will lead to an actual winter. Don't get me wrong. I like a couple of good snowstorms but I also enjoy not freezing the skin off my thin bones. I enjoy not having to get a second job to pay my natural gas bill to heat this drafty, cavernous villa we call home.

And for the time being, I enjoy some autumn sunshine because all this rain does is tear the few remaining leaves off the trees leaving behind a soggy leaf carpet on my lawn that I will have to take care of in some way if it stops raining before Halloween.