Medha decided that her new business is going to be raking leaves in other people's yards. She has been looking at the yard across the street rather longingly, seeing $$ in the ever increasing litter of leaves. I have had my misgivings from the start; knowing her, I will have to finish the jobs she starts but she was rather adamant about it. Since our yard was the focus of our day yesterday, I decided to get rid of this banshee forever.
Unlike Gini, all I ever get from my neighbor's trees and yards is leaves, leaves and more leaves, far more than my own trees ever shed. I told Medha that if she is serious about her business, she needs to practice first and the best place to start would be in our own yard. Two birds with one stone! Jai and Bee whip up delicious smoothies to do that. I get my yard cleared of leaves and put to rest any visions of a raking business.
Call me wicked or anything else, but I had no choice! Within 5 minutes, she was done. Not with the yard but with the idea of the business. It's hard work and m'lady is not exactly built for menial labor nor is it her idea of fun. Especially when she has to go at it by herself. I explained to her that she could still do it but sub-contract the labor to the agile young man next door, who I borrow from time to time as a son-on-loan. She liked the idea of marketing his services for a commission but she thought that he would probably not appreciate it. And I agreed. I don't want to upset him in any way. You see, he is my lawn maintenance guy and in fall, he shifts his focus to leaf raking and by late fall, it's snow shoveling.
With that, she flounced off and went to join in the squeals and screams that were coming from the backyard that is kitty-corner to ours. There are 4 rambunctious kids in that household. All of them rake leaves. I wish I'd known that they came in handy for chores like this. I would have risked my life to have a few more. They were piling all the leaves onto the trampoline for the 'rise from the dead' game. One person had to go under the pile with their eyes closed and emerge as the rest chanted 'rise from the dead', and then that person had to try to catch one of the 'living' and identify that person. Lots more fun than what she was doing in our yard!
Leaf raking business? History!
10 comments:
Fall foliage! what a beauty! Thanks, Manisha!
Check ur FB, some odd person called Foccacia sent you a request ;).
Before I finished reading the post, I knew that she'd quit the business once she'd done the yard at home :) It is a lot more exhausting than it looks.
Haven't heard that story, Anita!
And no, there was no way I would have been able to fight the might of the wind and clear the whole yard! It huffed and it puffed and blew all the leaves down. There are leaves everywhere!
Manisha...those leaves look lovely..don't know why you wanted to clean it away!..When we have the fall at our place, we have the flame of the forest and the other yellow flower..now not sure what its called. anyway it used to fall and I used to ask the person who cleans not to remove everything...he sure used to think I was weird..but it looks so lovely...of course the leaves here don't turn the colour as in your garden...but its beautiful
Several reasons that I know of: they get all moldy and we sneeze our lungs out, as fall is usually a damp season as well. It's also not good for the lawn. The other reason is that it is a fire hazard.
We usually aerate the lawn in fall and the yard has to be cleared of all leaves for that.
But if I had a choice, yeah! I'd leave them there!
Son-on-loan, idea is funny :)
I guess the kids had nice time playing, and as well cleaning up the mess !!!
That was a good idea to let her have a go in your own yard first... get a feel of things. I never knew how painful all this was until I had to shovel snow (not powder) but almost ice-like hard snow in 1 hr (while my 1 yr old took her nap). That's when I felt I had the world's longest, never ending driveway! :)
Wicked, wicked Manisha, making Cinderella rake the yard all by herself.. :)
I love the rising from thedead game though it would take a whole lot of more leaves for me to rise!
ha ha ha..that was funny!! i think i am unlucky on the neighbour front too..i get tons of leaves from their trees and a dumb dog..who still does not get the biforcation between my yard and theirs...and we have a fence for goodness sake!!
I do not envy having your leaves though I do enjoy seeing all the different fall colors in our neighborhood. We do have one ash tree at the front of our yard but our HOA takes care of clearing the leaves for that. My backyard only has evergreens. So, I get to have the pleasure and not the "pain" of Fall...
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