The leaves made a hard turn a few weeks back. It’s a good season this year. The sourwood and maple in particular. Blazing reds. But of course, with that color comes volume. Seems like a squillion leaves land on the ground each day, so it takes daily attention. Surrounded by all these trees, if we get behind, the place gets buried. So we’ve developed a system. A combined arms team, if you will.
I’m the straight-leg infantry, focusing on the hilly terrain, armed with the backpack-mounted blower. Anna is the motorized element, blitzkrieging the driveway on the zero-turn mower.
Anna loves the ZT. She goggles up, puts bear spray and water in the cup holders, earbuds in her ears, and motors up and down the driveway in a Zen-like state, listening to the Grateful Dead.
I’ll admit to being nervous when I first showed her how to operate it. “Here’s how you crank it,” I said with the authority of a former helicopter pilot giving the three-bladed machine the respect it deserved. “You steer it like this. You need to really watch out for—”
“Uh-huh. Got it. Bye.”
I haven’t been able to get on it since.