Thank you, Leaves

When I first thought of this post it was entitled, Thank you, Kyle. But it also could have been, Thank you, Jordan, because both of these good souls helped me rake and pile and hoist twenty (count them - TWENTY!) forty-gallon bags of leaves from my front lawn.Jordan started the task, helping fill seven or eight of the enormous vessels. But other commitments demanded his time and at the very moment Jordan began walking to his car, Kyle came walking toward me from the sidewalk and offered to help. He was a Godsend, that little boy. That not-so-little boy.

As we worked, Kyle said things like, "How high do you think these leaves would go if we piled them one-by-on on top of each other in a single stack" and, "Imagine all the leaves all over the world and how many there must be . . . all the leaves that EVER WERE, and how many there would be" and, "Just think of all the different TYPES of leaves and their shapes and sizes and colors. It's a lot of leaves!"

He postulated theories for parachutes made of forty-gallon black plastic bags and how one might fuse a few of them together to make larger parachutes and how much weight such parachutes might carry.

We worked long and hard. Packed down leaves in each bag two or three times during the filling. And somewhere along the way I looked at those bags of leaves with utter amazement. Seriously, Kyle was right. That's A LOT of leaves.
Well, I guess that explains how and why the front yard stays comfortably shaded and cool even on the hottest summer days; how a person can sit quietly or work in the soil under those trees during a rainstorm and remain almost dry. Those big, black, plastic they-could-be-parachutes bags are full of thousands of tiny, perfect umbrellas, which, when combined in the way God set it all up, create gigantic, perfect umbrellas in the front yard. For several months of the year these leaves on these trees shelter, sooth, renew and delight anyone who chances to rest beneath them. Here's one view of the leaves in their glory, if you happen to be lying on your back looking up. Click on the photo for full impact.This also happens to be where the two tree's branches meet in the middle and the photo was taken several years ago which accounts for the light coming through. The leaves are even more numerous and dense in their cover these days. And some readers may remember this one of many lovely events beneath the leaves.

So thank you, leaves, for your splendid service on our behalf. And thank you, Kyle and Jordan for your service on my behalf, now that those leaves are done. . . until next year.