One of the places we lived allowed leaves to be burned in the yards. Our yard, while small, had a number of mature trees. I enjoyed going out to rake the leaves and exercise in the cool air of fall. We set aside a corner of the yard for burning the leaves; it was so satisfying to stand there, leaning on the rake, enjoying the heat of the fire and smelling the leaves burning.
I usually raked the leaves by myself, but when they started burning, my favorite toy boy and the child would stand around with me to enjoy this. I probably should have insisted they raked with me, but I enjoyed the solitude of the yard and the mindless action of raking.
It’s hard to believe we are officially into fall. Leaves are just starting to turn here, although peak colors are usually about four weeks away from now. This picture is from upstate New York, which has gorgeous fall colors even though you can’t burn the leaves in your yard :)
Have a good weekend!
© 2011 dogear6 llc
Word for tomorrow – ABROAD. If you prefer to work ahead, see the list for the week under “A Word A Day”.
A Daily Life 
October 1, 2011 at 6:40 pm
There’s something about mindless, repetitive work in a beautiful environment that is almost irresistible, and certainly enchanting. I haven’t raked leaves in years. Maybe I should.
How do you keep the grass from catching?
October 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm
You are so right about it being irresistible. When we burned the first pile of leaves, it burnt out the grass underneath. After that, it seldom went beyond the edges into the live grass. However, whenever I burned, I did have the hose on and ready in case of a problem.
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October 1, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Gorgeous photo. We both took the same approach with today’s word. (I was too lazy to go out into the rain to take a photo of a rake from the shed.)
October 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm
I know! Your picture was just gorgeous.
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October 4, 2011 at 12:20 pm
I miss the brilliant colors of autumn on the east coast. I learned a lesson, at great physical expense, about clearning away accumulated dead leaves from the side of our property where we lived in Redding, Connecticut. I’ll be blogging about it…so stop by.
thanks for the reminder… ;)
October 9, 2011 at 11:02 pm
I saw your story – that poison ivy is nasty stuff. So are the spiders; our neighbors and daughter are finding black widow spiders around. The work has to get done, but we all need to be careful about it.
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