Stac’s Place

I spent a few hours in the yard this week with a couple of my kids working on the leaves that have been accumulating.  I don’t know that anyone actually enjoys raking leaves (do you?) but it’s a pretty satisfying thing to look at a clean lawn and a huge pile of leaves.  There aren’t many times in my life that I can actually say, “I’m done!” with anything.  And then there’s the inevitable temptation to dive into the pile of leaves–they’re practically begging for it…

Here are a couple of things that I want to pass on to my kids:
1.  make sure you pick up the dog poop before you start raking.  there’s not much grosser (more gross?) than a rake covered in dog poop, unless it’s your fingers after attempting to clean the rake.  now, a leaf blower + dog poop…that’s another story!
2.  blow the leaves off the roof before you rake the area where the leaves from the roof will land (doh!)
3.  start at one corner/end of the yard and rake toward the other end.  raking in different sections all at the same time doesn’t seem to work as well.
4.  there’s a delicate balance between waiting for the last leaf to fall and letting the leaves begin to kill the grass.  timing is everything.
5.  there’s a time for finesse (raking the last bit of leaves onto the tarp) and there’s a time for “power raking.”  it’s also pretty fun to see just how big a pile of leaves you can push using your rake+legs combo.
6.  lay the tarp out flat, and try to avoid raking leaves under the tarp.  it only makes for more work.
7.  try to make it fun.  create mini-competitions, see who can rake their section the fastest, who can move the biggest pile of leaves, who can cause the biggest “splash” with their dive…
8.  let the little kids use the leaf blower every once in a while.  they might not move many leaves, but the fun of watching them blow air under their clothes is worth the time!  and they like to think they’re helping, which is a good thing.

We didn’t get any photos of the leaf-diving this year, but here’s one from a few years ago.  Our kids are much bigger now…as was this year’s pile of leaves!