Yard work... in style!

Today we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and clean up the leaves that fell in our yard throughout the winter.  We're surrounded by oak and walnut trees, which don't lose their leaves in a timely manner like maples and ashes (which we have 4 of those, too).  Needless to say, our yard was full of leaves.

After church and lunch, we headed home to tackle the backyard.  Gracie wanted to play on the swing set for the first time in forever.  She couldn't contain her excitement, so as Ryan and I debriefed about our Sunday School class. Gracie got herself dressed to go outside.  She started with flip-flops and capri pants, but I told her she needed sweats or jeans, 2 long sleeved shirts, tall socks, and shoes that tie or velcro.  Here's what she came up with!

This kid kills me... and reminds me of myself at that age!  I felt like I was doing yard work on Gilligan's Island or something.  So funny!

While Ryan and I raked, mowed, bagged, burned (yeah, more on that later) the leaves, Gracie played in her playhouse and on her swing set.  Between pushing the baby doll in the baby swing and playing with her play dough, she easily stayed entertained for about 3 hours.  I had decided to forego the nap today in an effort to make sure the time change didn't mess up her/our sleep schedule.  But when she asked me to snuggle her in the hammock for a minute, I could tell that she was pretty exhausted.  I welcomed the break and began swinging with her in the hammock and before I knew it, she was totally conked out!  Tysie and the neighbor's dog barking at each other, Daddy running the mower, and birds chirping couldn't wake this tired girl.  A Sunday afternoon nap in the hammock is the best!

So for the leaf burning.  Yes, I know it's illegal to burn leaves in the city.  Yes, I know it can be dangerous.  And yes, I know it makes us seem like rednecks.  But you haven't seen the sheer volume of leaves that fall into our yard.  It's re-donk-u-lous!  I'm serious!  In the corners of our yard, where the fence traps all the wind-blown leaves, the before-raking leaf pile is up to mid-calf.  It's impossible to catch them in the mower bag, too.  Well, not impossible.  But a 10 second pass across 3 feet of yard fills the bagger.  So I was raking and Ryan was mowing/bagging, and we were getting no where, fast.  I was ranting about how insane this is and how you should only be held responsible for raking the leaves of the trees that are planted in your own yard (3 of our neighbors' trees drop 80% of their leaves into our yard, yet we have no choice to cut them down, therefore we must rake them --- yes, I know we also benefit from their shade, but that wasn't my point today).  So anyway, I was ranting and Ryan casually brought up that they solve a similar problem down at the mobile home in Bennett Springs by burning them.  They rake them into a pile a set fire to the pile.  Genius!  I said, "Don't tempt me, Ryan."  I guess he didn't think I was serious because he actually agreed with me.  So I marched my worn-out self inside and grabbed a lighter.  About 5 minutes after the smoke was rolling out of the leaf pile, Ryan said, "Maybe this wasn't the best idea?"  He was legitimately worried about getting a ticket.  Not me, I thought the fine we'd pay would be worth the work we'd save.  Which actually wasn't true.  Burning damp leaves isn't a quick process.  While the small leaf pile burned, we continued to work our way through the rest of the yard and ended up bagging the rest before the leaf pile was completely burned.  Admittedly, it probably wasn't the best idea, although the pyromaniac inside me had a good time with it.  Gracie also enjoyed the "campfire"... so no regrets here!