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Tuesday, December 09, 2003

raking

I have come to the conclusion that deciduous trees are the direct invention of the Devil. I realize this afresh every autumn, and it's largely the fault of this enormous tree in our front yard. I don't know what kind of tree it is; it's built kind of like a cottonwood except (praise the Lord for small mercies) it doesn't shed cottony wisps all over everything. It does, however, try to fill the San Joaquin Valley with leaves. It makes a valiant effort. Usually I rake the leaves into a pile or two on the grass, with the intention of eventually getting them into bags and taken who knows where, the dump, whatever. Then, because I like putting leaves in bags about as much as I like putting away laundry, they sit around in piles till it's rained a few times and they're sodden and weigh about a pound apiece and of course by that time it's a lost cause and they just sit there in their piles and rot, and ruin that part of the lawn for the next eight months or so. This year, however, we had A Plan. We want to rototill our backyard in the early spring and plant grass seed there, in hopes of transforming the mown field weeds into an actual, you know, lawn. Then the kids can play back there instead of the front yard, and the front of the house will cease to be so cluttered up with their toys that it looks like we were holding a yard sale and had to run away from an oncoming tornado just in time to spare our lives. However, our soil is classic red clay. You could practically sculpt with this stuff. Water pools on it, runs off it, and makes it into slippery red staining mud that hardens into something so hard that only weeds can tolerate it, and those only barely, as soon as it's dry. We called our local ag advisor to ask how to remedy this, and his reply was "six inches of organic matter". Well, thanks to our tree(s -- there're three ornamental plum trees out front that contribute their fair share to the Lawn-Killing Leaf Piles each year), we had a plenitude of organic waste on hand, and it was just a matter of moving it to the backyard. That sounds so simple. ha. At least I got a workout today and yesterday. I hope I never hold another rake as long as I live.

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