Leaves are falling all around . . .

Yesterday, Dan and I participated in a ward service project of raking leaves for the surrounding community. We met at a church building that is less than a block from where we live and after the group had filled up on fruit bars and capri suns, we went to work. Half of the group went down the road to rake leaves in unsuspecting folks' yards, and the rest of us stayed at the church building to rake up the lawn around there. It took 9 people almost 2 hours to rake the whole church lawn! The lawn is huge and there are great big trees that didn't have any objection to sharing their abundance of leaves with us.


This is part of the yard we raked up by the church - it looks much better now (sorry, no after pic)!

Those of us in the "church" group raked and raked ... and then raked some more. At one point we got to the big section of the lawn (seen in the photo above). At first, it was just Dan and I on this section as all the others were just putting the finishing touches on the other sections. Dan went to one corner and I to the other. For some reason (which I have yet to figure out) I chose to rake in the corner where the fewest leaves could be found. These few rebelious leaves who fell so far from their mother tree were quite the source of pain and agony for me as it took great amounts of time and little reward in that corner. However, I worked hard for my little piles (I have the blisters and knots to prove it) and I was proud of them! ;)


This is just one of the blisters I acquired

Anywho ... by the time we were finished, we had filled 22 forty-five gallon bags full of leaves and (since we ran out of those), 10 thirteen gallon bags. Dan hauled 12 of the big bags back to his parents in IF for their garden, and then a wonderful guy from our ward took the other 10 big bags and our 10 small ones for his own garden (what a saint)! It was quite the rewarding experience, and despite the blisters, I'm glad we participated!

Bags of leaves after the project was over