Leaves!

Coming from a new neighborhood in Katy, Texas, with very few trees, we have found ourselves in an unfamiliar leafy situation here.  There are quite a few large trees around our house that drop a lot of leaves.  Every household is responsible for maintaining their yards for 75 feet around the house.  Maintenance includes raking and bagging leaves.  So, during the Fall, we have been raking and bagging leaves every weekend.  We make it a family affair.  Vanessa and Madeleine take on most of the raking duties while Troy does most of the bagging.   The Self Help store (an on-base facility that loans out all kinds of lawn and hardware equipment) provides these large plastic bags.  We fill them and then jump on them to compress the leaves.  That part is pretty fun!  By Sunday night, there are hundreds of these stacked bags all over the neighborhood.  Last week we had a couple of very windy days and the leaves really came down.  There were drifts of leaves in some places a foot deep or more.  The pictures are from our little courtyard cleanup.  By the end of the day there were even more bags!