yard work

I must give a shout out to my sweet husband. Yesterday after church, he went outside and didn't come back until late in the afternoon. We love our cute house and neighborhood, but our trees can cause many problems when it comes to this time of year. We have 2 huge Sycamore trees in our front and back yard and their big leaves cover almost every inch of our yard, deck, porch, flower bed, shrubs, etc.. We have a creek to the right of our house with a fence that lines it. So when there is a good wind, every leaf in the neighborhood blows to our house and gets stuck on the fence. It's amazing how many leaves there are. Our gutter guards that were on when I bought the house weren't in the best condition. Most have blown off during storms. So Rob bought new gutter guards and spent the afternoon cleaning out the gutters and installing new guards. After that he started raking leaves, so I came out to help. We didn't even get to the backyard...It's like swimming in kudzo back there. We are hoping some young kid who wants some "easy" cash will come knocking on our door so we can give him that great responsibility. After Rob finished the gutters and raked the front yard leaves, he cut back our "out-of-control" shrubs. The house looks so much better. The only problem we are running into is all the leaves in the flower bed. Back in the Spring, we put down mulch (recycled rubber tires). We got it for free from one of Rob's co-workers so it really worked out great for us financially. It also looked SO good!! The problem though, that we didn't realize then, is that the leaves are covering the mulch and there are so many that it will take forever to get through it all where you can see the mulch again. I don't want to rake them, b/c the mulch will go with it. So, I got down on my hands and knees and picked up as many leaves as I could by hand. Maybe that's just something that little old ladies who have a green thumb enjoy doing, but I don't. I gave up and Rob and I went inside. Other than that, it was a very productive day!