Fu#&ing Stupid Leaves

I have two large oak trees in my front yard and one huge, huge, huge bald cypress tree in my back yard. In the spring and summer they are beautiful and provide much appreciated shade. In the fall and winter, they are the bane of my existence. 

First, I tromp around on the roof with my leaf blower, cleaning out the gutters only to have them fill up again in about 5 minutes. It's really frustrating! Getting on the roof is quite a treat to watch. I have a rickety old wooden ladder and I climb up it very carefully all the way to the top. Then I have to straddle the gap to get onto the roof. Getting the second leg up is a challenge but I always manage to do it without falling off. That's the first hurdle. The second hurdle is getting myself to a standing position while picking up the leaf blower. My roof is pretty steep so it takes me a while to get used to standing at an angle. I have to get pretty close to the edge of the roof in order to aim the blast of air into the gutter to remove the leaves. Most of the leaves are wet and there are always millions of acorns so it's a pretty messy job. The peaks and valleys of my roof always accumulate lots of leaves so it looks like a storm when I blow them to the ground. The last time I did this chore my ladder fell over - twice -  and I had to find another way to get down to the ground. Let's just say that it wasn't pleasant. 48 year old women aren't meant to be jumping off a roof to the ground!

Once I get the leaves down on the ground I really get to work. I like to use my mulching lawn mower to grind the leaves up so that they can fertilize the yard. My lawnmower is a fairly reliable machine, once I manage to get it started. Getting it started is the problem. I used to be able to fire it up in 2 or 3 pulls of the cord but now...it might take 100 cranks. I spent 45 minutes cranking on the sucker the last time I started it.  I had Mr. Wonderful come out and try to crank it but he gave up after about 30 cranks. I then worked on it until it finally started. The yard looked nice once I mowed over it about 3 times. I didn't do a super good job because my trees had quite a few leaves left.

Today, I decided to mow the leaves again since they were about a foot thick on the ground. I got out the mower and proceeded to crank it about 25 times. When my arm felt like it was going to fall off I asked my kidlet's boyfriend to try. He tried about 20 times and didn't have any luck. I'm sort of hard headed so I tried for another hour but never got it to fire up. I was so mad! I was completely out of breath, my arm was like jello, the leaves were deep and I couldn't get the dang mower to start. I hope the neighbors weren't looking out their windows because they would have seen me stomping my feet, kicking the mower and cursing like a sailor.

My back is still recovering from the surgery I had and it's a bit

tender so cranking on my ornery mower didn't help. It just made me more mad. So now I sit, leaning on a heating pad, trying to make my back calm down. I can look out the window and see those da#@ leaves in my yard. I swear that they're laughing at me. I think I heard them whisper something to the effect of 'sucker lightweight who can't even start a lawnmower. Ha ha ha ha'

Trees are wonderful. They provide oxygen and shade and are beautiful to look at. I just wish they didn't shed 10 million leaves each year. I also wish that my mean old lawnmower would start. I wish it didn't take an hour of cranking before it did. I wish I were stronger and tougher. I wish, I wish, I wish. Dad gum leaves.