the leaf people…

I don’t think anything defines idiosyncratic behavior more than the annual ritual of the fallen leaves and what people do with them. It always gives me such a chuckle while driving this time of year to witness the quirky habits of the leaf people. I could have photographed the people but whoa that would take far too much time! These photographs of our yard and our neighbor’s will suffice.

Perhaps my favorite is the (generally) older woman with a broom fastidiously sweeping up the last errant leaf in the gutter at the end of her driveway; while the yard adjacent to hers is covered with leaves and an autumn breeze is blowing.

Next is the guy with the leaf blower shooing them all out into the street for the city’s street cleaning truck to suck up. He is followed by the guy who just blows the leaves out of his yard to become someone else’s problem. There are many who do nothing with them except walk through them, crunching the leaves into oblivion and probably tracking the remnants into the house.

Hubs has been known to collect leaves all over town, looking like Mr. Claus with a huge bag on his back. He runs them through a very noisy mulcher (as in movie Fargo) and then puts the mess into his compost pile.  It’s gotten out of hand as people started dropping off their bags of leaves for him.

I still think Charlie Brown had the best idea….rake them into a pile and then jump on it!