Raking Leaves

Raking leaves, and discovering a lawn totally hidden under leaves is always satisfying....I recall. But I also remember the aching muscles....and the blisters. They are definitely not fun. 

We live on a sandy ridge just east of the gulf coast in central Florida. We fell in love with this piece of property partly because of the nice mix of pasture/grass land and trees. 

Most of our trees appear to be Sand Live Oak and Turkey Oaks, Slash Pine and Sand Pine. The pines are evergreen. The live oaks keep their leaves all year and in the spring drop most of their small, hard leaves as new leaves emerge. The Turkey Oaks drop their leaves in the fall, after a less than glorious display of color. These leaves are the large, lobed leaves one thinks of when you think "oak". We have had large oak leaf puddle under each of the trees in our yard for quite a few weeks.

A few days ago I thought that I should rake them up. But no, I'm not going to blister my hands raking the darn things! I turned to a bit more modern technology....based on old standbys! 

Do you remember these? My parents might have had one....in the 60's. I vaguely remember my mom pushing one around our yard. 

But, the Mister found one to pull behind a lawn mower. Something like this:

So, off I went trying to drive the zero-turn radius lawn mower, pulling the leaf rake....it wasn't pretty! Were there any police in our yard I would certainly be pulled over for drunk driving! I find it very difficult to track a straight path! A few shrubs have been victim to my poor driving skills!

I do have a buddy who likes to go with me! When the mower starts, 

she trots up and asks to hop up on the deck of the mower. 

She stays put for a few rounds. 

We had a low spot in the pasture where I dumped the leaves.

Miss Kaitlyn had to hop off to check the area out!