An Unending Pile

Today I raked the back yard. This is what it looked like before I started. Sorry about the blurry picture, and the fact that the first few are blurry; the close-up mode was on, and I didn't realize until we were nearly done with the job. This is what the yard looked like at 9:00am when I headed out there. Thankfully, we found a rake in one of the two falling-over sheds, meaning we could actually rake! A good thing because it seemed like all the leaves in the world had fallen into our yard (Derek made some jokes about how could there be leaves in our yard? There aren't any trees for miles! I guess one of the things that attracted us to the place will also be one of the more challenging things to deal with when it comes to yard work!).

As I said, I started around 9:00am, and it took me over an hour and a half - and some blisters! - to rake all the leaves (that's including a couple photo breaks, and orange juice breaks, of course!).

I decided I wanted to get all the leaves into one giant pile, because it would give me a better idea of how many I raked - and it makes for better (blurry!) photos.

And there she is. You folks probably don't realize this, but that pile of leaves is ginormous. I wish I'd taken a picture with me standing beside it - or in it - for some life size comparison. But honestly. Biggest. pile. of. leaves. ever.

And here's Derek doing the classic Mennonite while standing on top of the pile (actually there was stump hidden underneath all those leaves, so he doesn't actually have levitation skills. Though that'd be sweet!). Now the pictures stop being blurry, and you guys can see how great my cell phone camera is! I was actually surprised by these shots. I guess with good lighting, the pictures don't have to be terrible!

While I raked the whole backyard by myself, Derek helped me load the leaves into garbage bags and lug them to the curb. Or... at least he was entertaining, while I did the work?

I'm joking. Derek added wonderful assistance (and great humour!) to the job that neither of us really enjoyed. Seriously, that pile was huge. Here's me lying in it. After we'd cleaned up half of it. It took us about as long to clean up the leaves as it did to rake them! It seemed like we'd fill a bag, turn around, and realize that the pile hadn't gotten any smaller. I swear it was growing.

And because I've shared so many pictures of the huge task, here's a shot of Derek being very excited that we could see the end!

And, of course, tired but happy that we've managed to get all THIRTEEN bags of leaves packed up and ready to go on Monday morning. Speaking of the bags, when I was getting ready to rake, I told Derek I'd head to the store later to grab leaf bags. And he asked me, well, what's wrong with using regular garbage bags? That's what my family always used! And of course I responded by asking, what? You don't use the special leaf ones? And he said, well, we just didn't feel the need! They're the same thing except bigger. With a very confused look on my face, I said, Wait. You guys don't have the paper leaf bags here? And he said, paper leaf bags? And I said... In Ontario we have special paper leaf bags... and then the compost people come and pick them up. Then Derek shook his head and smiled at me and promptly told me that there is no such thing in Manitoba. Some days, I swear we're from different countries.

And now, for the big reveal. Tada! No more leaves. I know that it looks like there's leaves in that one section in the foreground, but that's actually just a bare patch in the grass. Oh! Speaking of the grass, it seemed like someone had just cut the lawn right before the leaves fell, which was annoying, because I was raking up half-decomposed, soggy grass clippings as I raked up the leaves. Mmm. Yum. Now on to the front yard!