the leaf sucker-uppers

Reasons why I like this city...

- has almost any restaurant 

- the walking street

- TONS of thrift stores

- easy recycling

- the leaf sucker-uppers

Yes, it's true.  This city will vacuum up your leaves.  At the beginning of fall, we noticed that people liked to rake their leaves in piles by the curb.  We thought that was a funny trend and joked that maybe a giant vacuum came by to pick them up.  

Well, one day I saw it.  It does exist. And it was right outside our house. A giant vacuum tube attached to a truck will come suck up your neatly piled leaves. When the mail came that afternoon, we got a letter explaining the rules of the leaf sucker-uppers and the dates that they'll come by each neighborhood district this fall.  Of course, the first date for our neighborhood was that very day-- so that wasn't much help.  Fail on the leaf sucker upper communication.

The next date for the leaf sucker-uppers is tomorrow.... and we are ready!

This is the front of our house... and the other side of our corner lot looks about the same.  It's hard to tell with the picture, but that pile is about 2-3 feet.  You can kinda see the piles across the street as well. Took a good couple hours and we worked into the night.... but it does get dark at 5:00 now, so I guess we worked into the early evening.

We didn't go all crazy to get every single fallen leaf in the pile... because apparently some people on our street do that.  I mean, it IS fall, people! But maybe we'll be the same way in 45 years when we're retired. And maybe we'll also turn our light off during trick-or-treating so the ONE house on the street that does welcome children gets only like 12 kids. 

Yeah, that happened.  We were a lonely illuminated light on beggar's night and therefore our beggar traffic was way low and I had to eat all the leftover candy. 

This was also my FIRST opportunity to hand out candy on Halloween-- so I had high hopes!

Keep in mind that I grew up in the country and now I live in town. So things like recycling, handing out candy on Halloween, using a push mower, and preparing for leaf sucker uppers is all NEW to me.  

But really, are giant leaf vacuums the "norm" for the rest of you town folk?? If they are, then I am WAY out of the loop here.