Leaf it to Me, I'll Bring the Fun

The annual mountain of a leaf pile. 

The Leaves of 2015

Every year it seems as if we have more and more leaves.  This year they fellseemingly all in a couple days.  Just like past years though, all the hours of blowing and raking was worth it with all the joy it brought.

Oh man - the before

Long day ahead

Running to the fun

A great place for a crash landing

A little more cautious

 

It's big

Thinking about asking Mr. Locke to jump in

You can get lost in here

Sighhhh

This is always a great sight

Leaf Us Alone! (But It Really is Fun in the End)

As with every fall, our yard produces a mountain of leaves.  It leaves us all in complete exhaustion.  Mae and I took a rest in our work.  Two Saturdays of hard core leaf raking.  -T

Killer

But what a nice reward

There's really no joke here, I did just about fall asleep

Some people take breaks

Drama

All the long hours are worth it with just a few smiles

Brooklyn loves leaf piles more than Mae and Anna did at that age

Maybe that's because she wasn't just dropped into it and disappeared like Mae did

Fort Knox Comes to Loveland

With the biggest back yard in the neighborhood and a front yard with a mega tree, we have no shortage of fall leaves.  This year was a little different though because trees held their leaves longer for some reason and then seemingly all came down at once.  Normally, I can just mulch the back yard and then dump the leaves.  Well, this year the backyard was just TOO thick to do that so we had to do some raking in the backyard and not just the front and sides like we typically do.  Also, with all the clean out spots we had, we are running out of places to dump leaves in the back so it all got transported to the front.  Bottomline was after hours of work we had one MASSIVE leaf pile ready to play in.  Mae was in leaf heaven! Anna, well, she's got better things to do. -T

Mae headed right for the pile; Anna headed right for the Hoffman's

Can you pause the playtime and go retrieve your sister?

I don't think they are home, Anna!

Look what the mailman dropped off...

...two cute girls!

Climbing the mountain

Biggest pile on the street - by far

I think she could get lost in that sucker

Gotta keep the flight risk locked down - good work, Mom!

Yea!!!!

Vacation/Project Day 3

For a couple years now, I've wanted to clear out this side of the yard.  I always wanted help though so the task didn't seem so daunting.  Well, I started this in the morning and waited for Papa D, who was addressing a bee issue we were having upstairs.  After the years of waiting for help, I STILL ended up clearing this out by myself - AND, little did I know, I'd get a heavy dose of poison ivy as a reward for it!  I wouldn't say it was "worth it" - there's nothing I fear more or hate more than poison ivy, but it sure did look good (for about 10 minutes until the wind blew and covered all of it with leaves again). -T

Papa D did come months earlier and cleared out the big branches and wood so I guess I didn't do it ALL by myself!

Leaves, overgrown bushes, vines, weeds the size of trees, etc.

I want to say the poison ivy was subtly in this area

I see no 3-leafed vines in here

Like I said, not worth it, but it looks oh so good!

I feel itchy just making this post

You can see the fence again!

And here come the leaves!

Leaf Me Alone While I Jump In This Pile

The leaves were slow to fall this year.  We did get a decent pile and for the first time in her life, Mae actually enjoyed them!  Anna was hesitant to have fun in the leaves, preferring just to work instead. -T

We couldn't get Anna in there with her

Need to be 3 to love the leaves I guess

"Why am I the only one still working?"

"Mae plays?  Mom and Dad take pictures?  Me still working?  I'm outta here!"

"Could someone at LEAST help me to get a bike or something!?"

She was down with this as long as I left "a little peak"



Glad to see she's not so terrified this year

What a fun ride!



"That's it - I'm so done!"