Whatever happened to …

… leaf games?

Not to be confused with Leaf games, which is another topic.

It’s started around here.  Usually, it’s the big maple tree out back that starts to drop its leaves.  At this point, they’re still green which always confuses me.  Shouldn’t they have changed colour to autumn gold, orange, or red before falling?

But it has indeed started.  Just enough falling to make it feasible to mulch them with the lawn mower.  There will come a time when that won’t do the trick though and leaf management becomes a big job.

As a youngster though, leaves falling were just plain fun.  We’d do all kinds of things with them.

• glue them to presentation boards as highlights for school projects
• take turns shoving them down the back of friends’ shirts so that they itched and were annoyances, not in a bully fashion but it was just the thing to do.  It certainly made for some itchy classroom days if it was your turn to be on the receiving end
• we’d rake them into a huge pile and then bury ourselves in them or just use it as our own high jump pit.  The net result was still leaves that filled your clothes and itched
• help dad rake them to the front yard where we’d have a big pile of leaves
• then, when he wasn’t looking, we’d come speeding down the hill on our bikes and drive through the pile sending them everywhere (which resulted in going back to the previous step)
• taking a bunch and stuffing old pants and shirts and making leaf people that we would sit on the lawn chairs on the front porch (a pumpkin was involved too)
• related to the above, my mom would always have a fall theme going on with our front window and it involved carefully placed leaves
• throughout the town, everyone would rake their leaves to a pile at the front of their yards and would burn them.  I distinctly remember the smell of burning leaves and the smoke that it generated
• again with the bikes, driving through burning piles of leaves upped the danger factor a great deal

Much of this fun doesn’t exist anymore.  By bylaw in many places, you can’t burn leaves but rather have to rake them and place them into bags that are then collected for composting.  Much of the fun and joy above doesn’t exist.  Besides, I’m not sure that I would do that to my current bicycle.

For a Sunday, do you have any leafy memories?

• could there be a more perfect decoration for school projects?
• are you still able to burn leaves or does your community insist on other ways to get rid of your fall collection?
• do you have a favourite colour for a fall leaf?
• just how long does an oak leaf last?
• have you started raking and doing other leaf maintenance things already?
• do you do your own composting?
• does your community have a composting program?
• if you or your community compost, do you access it in the spring when you’re planting?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.  No matter who you are or where you live, autumn leaves have to factor into your life somehow.

This is part of a regular Sunday morning series of memories.  You can access them all here and contribute to the Padlet if you have a great idea for a post.