Leaves and Pieces

Today promised to be a warm day, so we wanted to get outside early, while the temperatures were still cool enough, to estimate what we needed to buy to put pavers behind our storage sheds.

The main live oak tree on our property looms over the sheds. While that keeps the contents shaded and cool, the tree also subjects the whole area to its annual leaf dropping each spring.  That means a mess of leaves fall behind the sheds each year. We know that just blowing the leaves off a hard surface is the easiest way to deal with the mess, so we had planned on going today to pick up a few pavers that we could cut and fit into the area.

However, when Rick stepped out of the shower today, he slipped on the wet terrazzo floor and injured his leg.  So much for hauling pavers around... His hip is quite sore and he has been limping around most of the day.  Just when his hand was starting to heal, something like this happens.  I guess we are just supposed to relax this year and wait for the healing to continue.

We did go outside to see if we could at least move some of the leaves out of the area.  With a couple of hours work, we were able to fill three huge black garden bags with leaves.  We probably have about six more bags' worth out there to rake and to haul to the curb, but that effort was enough for today.

The leaves were falling -- as they do each February and March before the trees bud in the splint -- as quickly as we could rake them up.  To add to the problem, our lawn service really does not cut the lawn short enough, so the leaves get embedded into the longer grass, and blowing them is not enough.  We need to use lawn and garden rakes to dig out the leaves from the bahai grass in the back yard.

After a morning of work, we came inside to cool down and to have some lunch.  Just before lunch, I completed the puzzle I have been working on for the last week.  Lindsay and Chris bought me this puzzle this past summer in Door County, so I brought it along for winter entertainment.  It was fun to do because the pieces all were oddly shaped, so even though the road was all one color and the leaves were enough to drive me crazy, sometimes the shape of the piece helped me complete the whole picture. After I finished it, I put the pieces back in the box and passed it on to Aunt Chris.  She loves to do puzzles, so this will keep her busy for a couple of days.

The puzzle is made from a photograph of one of the
roads in Door County. 

I suppose tomorrow we will venture back outside to see if we can work a bit more on the back yard.  Rick is threatening to cover the whole thing with artificial turf that we could just blow off and hose down when it gets dirty.  I think that is almost as much work as raking!