The Final Leaf

Did I say 28 bags of leaves. Ha Ha HA! I could have made it to the Dump in one trip if I only had 28 bags. I ended up making two trips. I hauled a total of 47 bags for a grand total of 1800 pounds. The part that really gets me is that after all the rain we've had, I probably paid a tidy sum of cash to haul and dump 700 pounds of water.

But at least that chore is done for the year. Thanks to my friend Jerry for the loan of his Gas Guzzling Chevy Mombo-Cruiser Deluxe.

Now we can move on to other more pressing jobs. Remember the house. We were doing some remodeling on the house. But now that we are entering the Christmas Holiday season, that will take a back seat. . . . . again!

As an artist, one of the good paying side jobs I have been doing for years is painting Holiday Scenes on windows of local businesses and the occassional house. Susan and I have been doing just enough the past couple of years to give us some extra spending money at Christmas.

It appears we are going to have a very Merry Christmas this year because I have just landed the gig of painting in ALL the skywalks downtown. If you've been keeping track of the skywalks, there are 14 of them.

There is a big skating competition coming to town in February and they want to hype it as much as possible. That will be the theme we will be carrying through the whole downtown skywalk system. Did I mention there are 14 of them?!

Yard Maintenance Part Deux

Susan and I have completed the Leaf Pick Up Program for this year. It took most of Sunday and it didn't help that the wind was swirling around us with Gale Force Intensity. You rake a pile of leaves and then before you finish stuffing them in a bag, they are spread out across the lawn again. Now I have to spend another Sunday hauling my 28 bags out to the Compost Pile at the Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant.

Sunday Morning Fun

One of the nice features of living next to a city park is that there is a certain "Entertainment Cache" that one would not ordinarily expect. There is always the crazy antics of the various animals in the neighborhood. The squirrels here are quite active, somewhat friendly, and always very entertaining when the cats are stalking them. The cats think they are being cleaver and stealthy and the squirrels know where they are at all times. I've never seen a cat get even close to a squirrel.

This morning as I let the cats out and grabbed the morning paper, I noticed this guy out in the park. He was in his early twenties. He was unusual because he was wearing nothing but his pants, hanging low enough on his waist to expose his underwear and a bit of butt crack. It has been raining for days and it can't be more than 40 degrees right now, so this is definately an odd sight. He's kind of walking aimlessly through the park and then stops and then walks in a different aimless direction.

Suddenly, a darts over toward the edge of the park where he sees a shoe. He puts it on and stomps into the intersection where another shoe sits. Further up the street he sees a clump of something that I assume is a shirt. At that point he is out of my view. I didn't really feel like walking off the porch in my bathrobe and slippers to further investigate. Then I would be the odd sight.

I can only surmise that this guy has been dumped in the park by his friends after a night of extreme alcoholic consumption and then, being the good friends that they are, strip him of most of his clothes. Ah, to be twenty and stupid again.

I'm not feeling terribly bright this morning myself. I went to a hockey game last night and then to the re-opening of a local bar that closed 15 months ago due to a fire in the building it was located in. We had a few beers and I'm feeling them now.

By the way, Susan did some priming yesterday. We're ready for a second coat.

The Efficacy of Power Tools

The weather dried out enough on Sunday for Susan and I to get out into the yard for some much needed Grounds Tending. We decided to leave the leaves until Halloween was over in order to create the proper "Autumn Atmosphere". Unfortunately, it rained like Noah all week long and left us with lots and lots and LOTS of wet, decaying leaves.

I had been looking forward to this Fall and the Leaf Eradication Procedure because earlier this year, I had obtained a Power Leaf Vaccuum. I have had only a couple of opportunities to use it and it seemed to work pretty well.

Well, I can tell you that it is totally useless if the leaves are plentiful and wet. We had both those things going for us. I tried using my lawn mower as well but once again, if the leaves are plentiful and WET, it too is useless.

It all came down to manual labor, which Susan was doing all through my attempts to use power tools.

The front yard is complete and we have many bags of leaves. I would estimate that we must have about 120 bushels. That's pretty good for a .24 acre parcel of land. Heck, in Canada, that would be over 700 hectars of maple leafs. (Is it leafs or leaves?) Now we have to wait for the leaves to fall in the back and side yards. Then we will do it all again.

I'm trying to remember why we moved here.

Post Halloween Depression

I would like to say that we've been working on the house but that would be a lie. We have just been winding down from Halloween. Today was Garbage Day and I was able to get about five or six of our 27 pumpkins into the garbage can before it was overflowing. Sunday is our one day off together so we will be doing the bulk of our Halloween Clean-up and Decoration Stowage at that time. I also have a crap load of wet leaves to rake up. "Sunday is going to be fun", he said with his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Well, at least Halloween is out of the way for another year and now we can concentrate on the house...and Thanksgiving....and Christmas....followed by New Years, Valentine's Day, Ground Hog Day and St Swithins Day. Perhaps I should consider becoming a Druid. Do they have holidays to contend with?!