Tackle It Tuesday #17 - Leaves

Ah yes, autumn. The cool crisp air, the bright vivid colors, the sense of anticipation as we get closer to the holidays.

And the leaves. Did I mention the leaves? The 'carpet' of brown, yellow, gold, crumbling, crispiness that covers our grass? Every day when I drive up my driveway, I can't stop looking at our yard and seeing everything that needs to be done before winter hits. Put the hoses away so they don't freeze and break the hose reels like they did last winter when they were left out too long? Nope. Pull the garden ornaments out and put them away in the garage for next spring? Nope. Take down my wind chimes and store them in the garage during the long winter months ahead? Nope. Mow the lawn one last time because it badly needed it before it got so cold out? Nope.

And then there's the raking. Even with 3 additional little sets of hands, we just hadn't had the time or the right weather to go out and work on it. We even spent our (little) free time doing other things like painting and re-arranging the living room. And there the yard sat, mocking us with more leaves blowing in to the yard and along the fence every day.

On Sunday, I managed to nag cajole beg annoy talk my wonderful hubby into going outside and at least making a dent in the number of leaves strewn around the yard. The girls and I went out to play in the leaves help. Ron raked up one big pile to keep the girls occupied while he and I worked on the rest of the front yard and the side between us and our neighbor's house. We crammed as many leaves into our yard waste toter as physically possible, but there are still two large piles to go. We really need to go out and buy some leaf bags - the city will come and pick them up for free if you buy their bags.

So this tackle is only partially done - and probably won't get much more done for a while since it's misty and drizzly and raining today and there is (gasp!) snow forecast for later in the week and over the weekend. We're not the only procrastinators out there though - I see leaves on the ground everywhere I go. And still a whole bunch of them on the trees even yet...

I'll leave you with a few of the photos from our raking fest on Sunday...

What are you tackling this week? And check out other Tackle It Tuesday posts over at 5 Minutes for Mom!