A day out in nature

When I say "nature",

I mean out in our front yard

with a bunch of leaves,

dried grass and some crazy,

long, obnoxious palm frond thingies.

That is in fact the technical term for them.

I'm almost positive of it.

One of my favorite things about North Carolina

is all the trees.

They are so tall,

so abundant,

so beautiful.

Oh,

and they shed leaves nearly all year round.

It's the third week of February

and there are still dead leaves 

clinging to many of the trees in our neighborhood.

We rake from October 

straight through until April or May

when the trees have new leaves.

I didn't think about it until I'd raked for nearly two hours,

but it's impossible for anyone who didn't see our yard

before this afternoon

to understand just how many leaves we raked.

I didn't take any before pictures,

but this is a great after picture.

Look! There's grass!

Who'd a thunk it?

Not this girl.

Scott raked throughout the week

and earned himself about $20.

We paid him minimum wage

which is $7.25 here in North Carolina.

He bought himself a super huge nerf type dart gun

and he'd had enough of raking.

He helped a bit, but mostly he ran around the yard

shooting the rest of us with his new gun.

You take your entertainment where you can find it.

He did go with Steven to the landfill twice

to drop off two huge loads of leaves.

He watched as Steven fought with the hoards of people

who had the same idea that we did,

(work in the yard on the first super warm weekend

of the year)

and laughed when the wind picked up

and forced a great deal of the leaves and dirt

into his dad's face.

That line about taking your entertainment comes to mind again.

Here's Mylee Bug,

earning her own pocket money.

She was a big help.

Here are those crazy palm frond thingies.

HUGE pain in the butt.

There are no other words to describe them.

The job is complete!

Maya, Steven and I got all the leaves cleaned up

off the street as well before we called it a day.

A shot of our leaf free yard

and Steven's company car.

The leaves in the bushes don't count.

Oh, and don't go to the back of the house.

The three and half hours we spent raking

took place in the front yard only.

We saved the back yard for another day.

I am sitting here trying to find a muscle that doesn't hurt.

My hands are a bit sore, even though I wore gloves,

and my arms and back are rebelling.

Wait...oh, maybe...no...

Pretty much everything hurts.

It's okay, though.

We'll all sleep well tonight at any rate,

and then in a few more weeks,

we'll have to rake all over again.

Nature...it's relentless.