Autumn Leaves in the Wind

There is a big ______ tree (insert name of deciduous tree with huge leaves - I don't know what kind) in our front yard that is losing leaves at a pretty alarming pace. I raked leaves up yesterday, many of them having already blown into our neighbor's yard (which I thought was sort of like littering and didn't want to do.) I don't have anything to put them in so I piled them up inside the back gate hoping that they would be protected from the wind there and, in any case, unable to attack the neighbors again.

(I wish there was a chance to go jump in them. But since it's been raining almost from the moment I finished gathering them up in the first place, jumping in them is pretty much out of the question without a wetsuit. They are mottled in color, mixed with leaves from other trees in a beautiful blend of gold and red - a massive pile. Impressive. But...)

Today, of course, the other half of what had been on the tree is on its way down, heading, once again, for lawn-other-than-our-own. We are having a wind storm. Oh dear.

We find ourselves to be a bit skittish about wind just now. Having lost a couple of massive trees last year in a devastating storm that damaged our roof, smashed our shed, broke through our fence and generally cost us a whole bunch of stress and inconvenience, we are eying the remaining trees with suspicion as they wave madly in the wind. Hmmmmm. Maybe there is something to be said for the "pristine lawns and low-lying flower beds" landscaping school-of-thought.

If we'd cut all these trees down, there wouldn't be all these autumn leaves to rake. That's the good news as well as the bad news.