Gathering leaves
by chuckofish
It is that time of year when the leaves begin to fall and we begin to think about cleaning them up.
Gone are the days when we had lots of free help.
Sigh.
The boy did come over on Sunday and he helped me achieve an ant apocalypse by destroying a giant ant hill that had been built over the course of some years in a low wall surrounding a tree in the front yard. He came over for brunch, but somehow he always ends up doing some much-needed man-work around the house/yard, for which I am most appreciative.
Here’s a poem to start off the week. Have a good one!
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?”
― Robert Frost



I could sure use some help with the leaf raking — I’m still recovering from the 20 minutes I did last Friday (how pathetic is that?).
There is something so Sisyphean about the whole leaf-raking thing too. Especially since we can’t burn them. I like the Frost poem and his take on it.
Yes, indeed!
That was quite the mound for sure. Glad we could dig it out. Any apocalypse!
*ANT apocalypse.