Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke
I scheduled today as an official Leaf Day. The morning was cool, but the forecast promised warmth later, which meant it was finally safe to commit to the mission. With determination (and mild dread), I headed outside to clear our lawn of fallen leaves.
Recent windy days had turned our trees into enthusiastic confetti machines. Naturally, every single leaf seemed to land in our front yard. We try to keep things tidy, but I skipped this chore on Tuesday—and leaves, like unread emails, multiply when ignored. Some of our neighbors let their yards turn into a brown carpet museum, but we live under the cheerful supervision of an HOA, where “neatly maintained” is not a suggestion but a lifestyle.
I confidently assumed this would be a one-bag job.
It was not.
One bag became two. Two became three. At that point, I began to question both my math skills and my life choices. I had cleared the yard just last week, so the sheer volume of leaves felt borderline disrespectful. It took a few solid hours to finish, but thankfully, it was still nowhere near the level of suffering known as summer lawn mowing.
Despite the surprise workload, the chore was strangely satisfying. With every pass of the leaf vacuum, the front yard visibly transformed from “abandoned forest floor” to “suburban responsibility.” After emptying the third bag, I finally stopped—mostly because my motivation had also reached full capacity. The yard looked noticeably neater, and I felt just proud enough to justify a future complaint about it.
For reasons known only to nature, the tree in our front yard still hasn’t finished shedding its leaves, while the neighbor’s tree is nearly bald. An arborist once told us our tree is weakened by its much larger neighbor and suggested we remove it. That suggestion was immediately vetoed by my wife, who has a deep sentimental attachment to trees.
A few years ago, we had to remove a massive tree behind our house because it was threatening the structure itself. It was so tall that owls used to visit it at night—often waking my wife around 2 a.m. with dramatic hooting. Even our kitten loved leaping from branch to branch. Cutting that tree was emotionally difficult, which is why the front-yard tree still stands today… heroically dropping leaves every autumn.
I powered through the task and completed it to my own satisfaction. Living at the bottom of a hill means we naturally collect more than our fair share of wind-blown leaves—especially near the storm gutter, which today was completely buried under a dense mat of leafy ambition.
Three bags. One stubborn tree. Zero regrets.
Well… maybe mild regret.
But the yard is clean.