"It's that time of year"...

...is a common phrase around our house these days.  Most of the time I associate this phrase with the Christmas holidays...as I assume most people would.

It's probably a product of being asked 14 million a few times a day for several weeks why the leaves on our trees were changing colors and subsequently falling.  After multiple explanations of the life cycle of a tree, my "easy" answer became....you guessed it...

"Because, Garrett, it's that time of year."

And, yet again, my "easy" answer has come back to bite me in the rear.

So, fast forward a few weeks and the trees in our yard have finally decided to drop their leaves {yipee!}.  We have one tree on the side of our house dividing the lot lines between our house and the one next door.  Apparently that neighbor likes his yard to be leaf-free (or has entirely too much time on his hands!!).  I've seen him out there at least 3 times a week raking.  Ridiculous.  But, since he decided to show us up this weekend and not only rake but also mow so there were ZERO leaves in his yard and there was now a distinct line between our yards, the boys and I headed out this morning to do something about it.  I should have thought to take a "before" picture, but this will have to do:

Yeah.  Totally not exaggerating.  And you should have seen it yesterday before the wind came through last night.  Nary a leaf in sight.

Anyway, we raked.  And jumped.  And raked some more.  I did get one trash can full picked up by the end of it all.  How?  I'm not sure.  Because there was a whole lot more un-piling than piling.  But, they had a blast (I swear...cardboard boxes or leaves.  They're thrilled.) and I got some cute fall pictures, so, I'll consider it a success.

Brotherly love.

 

 

And my FAVORITE shot of the day:

HA!