Break out the rakes

Fall finally seemed to arrive in Salt Lake City. By this time each fall, I've already raked a few times, but this autumn was odd. The leaves weren't changing colors and falling off by mid-October.

Well, just in the past few days, our maple turned red, our other tree's leaves went yellow, and suddenly, our lawn was full of leaves. I took the boys outside after dinner to rake, and in 10 minutes, we managed a big enough pile for Littlest to jump into.

I don't mind raking every fall; in fact, I kind of look forward to it. I know some people curse their trees for the leaves, but I see it as the tradeoff -- the trees provide shade, scenery and oxygen, we rake in return. And, it's a nice sign of fall, even if it was a few weeks late.

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