A Complete Waste of Time - theHumm November 2019

By Glenda Jones

I’m not proud of it, but I can procrastinate along with the best of them. I try to follow the adage “spend time, don’t waste it”, but it’s a hard thing to do when the weather is crisp and bright, the trees are golden and gorgeous, and the blue jays are at the feeder. If I’m doing something constructive outside, that can’t be a waste of time, right?

It’s easy to ignore the inside work. Heavens knows, dust doesn’t take a holiday! I can justify being outside if I grab a rake and pretend to be tidying up the yard. So in mid-September I was practically standing under the butternut waiting for the leaves to drop. The butternut is the garden wimp, last to get its leaves, first to drop them. I spent an hour raking every single leaf into a neat pile, gathering them up and depositing them properly in my leaf dump. I tidied all the edges, and nary a leaf was left in the surrounding bed or on the labyrinth. Pristine! I was ahead of the leaf game and had spent my time usefully.

The next morning the big cherry in the front yard took the hint and shed twigs and leaves that the dogs trailed into the house. Once more out with the rake I went. Doggy help made the job difficult, and I nearly scooped up the puppy along with the leaves! For the next couple of weeks I devoted valuable time daily to raking. It was partly for the exercise, I told myself, but really it was simply to be outside enjoying the weather. I didn’t even mind that I was repeating the same area several times. I figured two loads a day would be enough. However, my compost pile was beginning to grow, so I started a new one closer to the house.

By Thanksgiving I was starting to think the trees were laughing at me. I’d dutifully rake and clean up, and as soon as I turned my back some other tree would let loose and defoliate. In the woods the carpet of colour is astounding; on the lawn, not so much, because I know if I don’t rake leaves now I’ll be doing it in the spring and it’ll be wet and mushy.

We have one glorious red maple that defies my raking by being spectacular one day and totally bare the next. By the time it shed I needed back-up, so Alan used the tractor and trailer to load leaves out to the woods. The raking was beginning to get a bit tedious, a daily job in one area or another. The piles were growing, and there seemed to be no end in sight. I would look up at the poplars and will them to shed, but no, they were hanging on. One good wind should have done a better job than it did, but only littered the driveway.

Rake, rake, load, dump: totally futile! I was revisiting areas I’d done before, and I wasn’t enjoying the exercise anymore. I was wasting my time doing this every day. My leaf dump was too high, so I took to heaping loads of leaves on the periwinkle in the fervent hope it would die. (I know better, but hope springs eternal!)

We have a giant oak beside an ironwood, a pine and a maple. Those four conspired to shed into the pond, a secondary mess that involves either wet feet or heavy detritus in which we trust frogs will hibernate. The pond is our study in natural decomposition. The surrounding area will be our study in what happens if leaves are left where they fall. Translation: Lordy, I’m getting tired of this raking jazz!

There is an order to leaf drop: the butternut, the cherry, the maple, the ironwood, and then the birch, the ash, and maybe the apple tree. Rake, rake, until one day we seemed to have gotten the bulk of them. That’s the day there was a heavy frost, and the red oaks let loose all at once in a deliberate attempt to try our patience. By that point, we’d had it with raking, and the leaves were scooped onto the flower beds as mulch, the acorns clumped together for the squirrels, and we walked away from the rakes. We were done!

We intentionally turned a blind eye to the poplars lining the driveway, and made for the house. However, the very act of shutting the door caused every leaf to cascade all over the area we’d finished not ten minutes earlier. There was no way we were going to rake those darn things again. They will be unceremoniously heaved up with the snow the first time we shovel the driveway. Yes, they’ll be there in the spring, and yes, I’ll likely wish I’d spent one more day raking.

There is something good to be said for the first snowfall: we won’t be thinking of the time we spent (wasted?) on the end of the rake, and it’ll cover what we didn’t accomplish sooner. For a few months we can content ourselves that the garden will be well protected with a covering of leaves that of course will rot down and not be a mess in the spring. We’ll see about that in March…

Canadian Winterscapes
The Algonquin Ensemble Premieres Stunning New Production - theHumm November 2019

The Algonquin Ensemble has created a stunning new production and it’s coming to the First Unitarian in Ottawa on Saturday, November 30 and to the Almonte United Church on Sunday, December 1. Canadian Winterscapes is a multi-media journey celebrating the untamed beauty and indomitable spirit of a Canadian winter through music, art and photography. With moving pieces from the ensemble’s acclaimed début production Sonic Palette, uplifting arrangements of traditional seasonal repertoi......

A Complete Waste of Time - theHumm November 2019