Waking Up Is Impossible To Do

It was yesterday morning

The temperature is between 45 and 50

A chill in the air and leaves everywhere

The last of the little paper ornaments

Have decorated the ground nicely

It was my job to pick them all up

Like I was a street sweeper without a street

The person who cleans up after a birthday party

With tiny little bits of confetti covering the floor

The people who clean up a stadium after a football game

It is my job to make sure the whole place is clean

All I have to do is bend and lift

Then bend again

Then repeat five thousand times

Easy enough

I put them in large paper lawn bags

To save time I rake them first in mini piles

Then I reach with my hands and try to grab as many as I can

A surprise wind knocks the leaves from my hands back to the bare ground

Giving me a second chance to do it again

I use to rake the leaves in big piles

Then overwhelmed by the sight

Little piles give me small accomplishments along the way

Some of the leaves I mulch

I have an electric mulching mower that chops up the leaves

It works great

I have two make three or four passes over the leaves

Grinding them smaller and smaller each time

Now I take these leaves and use them as mulch

Around plants along the drive way and around the house

This takes more time

In the long run helps the plants

Recycles the leaves

I take some leaf crumbs and scatter them across the grass

Like adding powdered sugar on the top of pizzele cookies

They will feed the grass nutrients during the winter

There are too many leaves so I only mulch only half

Working through lunch

Trying to make the most of every hour

Finally pushed to stop

When the light turned dark

The time now is 4:45

I scramble to put my lawn mower away

Within minutes the whole place is black

I did what I set out to do

More than half way done

Tomorrow I know my body will feel it

Which is now today

So I lay still and my body sore from head to toe

Combining exercise and beauty together

Exercise is good

Keeping my body in shape

Keeping the yard beautiful

Is a wonderful sight

Even when the summer is over when the grass and plants die off

Nature is lovely

During all seasons of the year