The Leaves are Down

I just had the pleasure of rereading a portion of Annie Dillard's wonderful book, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. (A side note here - I first read this book when I was living just a few miles from Tinker Creek in Fincastle, Virginia).

One section, particularly apropos of the season, was about the falling leaves; and this lead to my picking up on an NPR article about leaves being pushed off their branches, rather than being pulled by the wind. It seems that deciduous trees have an "abscission hormone" that actually loosens the leaf from the branch. Then, when the cut becomes long enough, or a strong wind or scampering squirrel passes by, the leaf falls from the branch to the ground, gathering with its hundreds of thousands of fellow leaves in piles for children to run and jump in -- and families to rake into the compost heap.

Raking has become an annual family affair here at the Gills. We take turns raking, hauling to the back compost, and handling the leaf blower. Last year I was so greedy with the leaf blower that my hands were numb for about six hours - carpal leaf syndrome? This year Carla pulled out the lawn mower and plowed through the piles of leaves, chopping the little suckers into tiny bits. But, by the end of the day, the leaves were down and done for another year. . . as long as the huge piles in the neighbor's yard don't blow eastward into ours. (Is it too late to build a fence?)