The maple out front turned somewhere between Thursday and Sunday. Last week it was green with an orange top, like it was trying on a hat. By Sunday morning the whole crown was orange and red, the light coming through the living room windows was the color of tea, and the front yard already had a thin first layer of leaves that Hank was walking through very slowly, nose down, like a dog reading the newspaper.
It's a sugar maple, probably planted around the time the house was built in 1948, and it is both the best thing about our property and a lot of work every October. It feels like it drops a ton of leaves. I've never weighed them, but last year we filled 31 paper yard bags, and that was after mulching half of what came down.
How we actually do it
After three Octobers here, we've settled into three rounds.
Round one, early: When the first thin layer is down, Caleb runs the mower over it and chops it into the lawn. It disappears within a week. It's the easiest round, and the grass seems to like it.
Round two, the big drop: Usually mid-to-late October. We rake onto an old blue tarp and drag the tarp to the backyard, where Caleb mows the pile into a coarse mulch and we spread it over the two raised garden beds for the winter. It gets turned in come spring. The zucchini bed gets the most, because the zucchini bed earned it.
Round three, cleanup: Whatever's left once the tree is bare, usually the last week of October, goes into paper yard bags (a 10-pack is about $5 at Fleet Farm, and we go through three or four packs) and rides to the yard waste drop-off in the back of Caleb's truck.
One rule comes straight from Caleb's day job: no leaves raked into the street. They wash into storm drains and clog them, and he's one of the people who gets sent out when that happens. He says this every year with the seriousness of a man who has fished wet leaves out of a grate in November sleet.
The dog problem
Hank believes every pile of leaves is a gift addressed to him. The moment a pile is knee-high he backs up, wiggles and launches. He lands on his side, rolls, sneezes, gets up and does it again. Then he eats a leaf, spits it out and carries a stick to the porch steps to think about what he's done.
The front yard isn't fenced, so while we work he's on a long line clipped to the porch rail. It reaches most of the yard and keeps him out of the street if a squirrel crosses it. We gave up years ago on keeping him out of the piles. Instead he gets one sanctioned pile near the porch, and we work the rest of the yard while he flattens it. It's slower. It's also the best part of the job, honestly.
Before he dives, I kick through the pile once for sticks and anything sharp. And since deer ticks are still out on warm fall days, every raking session ends with a tick check on the porch steps, my fingers working through his feathering while he groans like I'm interrupting something.
What didn't work
Our first October here, our neighbors kindly lent us their gas leaf blower. Caleb pulled the cord in the driveway, and Hank, who is afraid of thunder and fireworks and, it turns out, leaf blowers, went straight inside and down the basement stairs. He stayed there the rest of the afternoon. We finished the yard, but it felt lousy being the reason our dog was hiding in the basement on a sunny Saturday. We've raked by hand ever since. It takes longer, and the dog gets to help, if "help" is the word.
The other thing I watch for in fall is mushrooms. They pop up in the shade under the maple after a rain, and Hank eats first and asks questions never. October at the clinic always brings a few calls about dogs who swallowed something mysterious in the yard, so I walk the grass before he goes out and pull anything that came up overnight. If a dog does get one down, the clinic will want to hear about it right away, ideally with a sample in a sandwich bag.
Mabel watched the whole operation from the front window. She'd like it noted that she has never once jumped in a leaf pile and doesn't intend to start.
Round two is probably this weekend. Hank has already started on the pile by the porch.
