Last days of summer

I snapped this photo a couple of weeks ago - since then, this fuchsia has started to lose its blooms. The weather is changing, well it was until today when it hit 90 degrees (a record breaking weather day). The feeling of fall is still in the air regardless of what it says on the thermometer. I look forward to the change of colors, I do not look forward to leaf clean up. It is a big job!

After moving here I began to see leaves in a whole new way. There are so many things that did not occur to me when moving from California to Indiana. Sure, I thought about the big things, snow/ice and how to drive in it, the potential of tornadoes and it seems many other weather related things. I admit - it never dawned on me that there might be a specific way to handle leaf pick-up/disposal. I suppose I should have done some research although I am not sure how I would have even known to think of it in the first place.

It dawned on me during my first autumn here that things were a little different. As the leaves began to fall, I noticed that most folks were fairly diligent in raking them up and pushing them to the curb. I assumed the garbage man must pick them up weekly with the rest of the garbage. Not so - there are crews that pick up the leaves in sections of the city during a window of time as assigned by section.

While living in California - I do not ever remember raking up so many leaves that the disposal of them was a conversation, let alone an issue. These are some of the little things that I find fascinating in the differences between the west coast and Indiana.

Here is a photo of the leaves from our yard during the first fall we lived in our house in 2005. A wall of leaves 4 feet high that ran the width of the property - and that was only the first pile of the season - there were several more to come and we had the sore muscles to prove it.