Leaf my imagination alone

Before Dutch Elm disease wiped out the trees lining Crombie Street in Atlantic, we spent lots of time raking each fall. (or Harley Baxter, our neighbor from across the street who did our yard work did).

We had fun with the leaves before they were burned or bagged for the trash. Of course we know now that's not good for environment. It's so wrong, but the smell of burning leaves takes me back to that time. You'd think burning something organic would be okay...but it puts bad stuff into the air, polluting it. Burning can be especially hard on people who have lung problems like asthma. But we didn't know that then...

Maybe Harley took our leaves over to his little backyard farm for organic material. Yeah! We'll go with that for now. Anyway...I digress.

When Mom would send us out to rake leaves, of course we didn't just do the job. Oh, no. It had to end up being so much more than that.

I was usually hanging with my sisters and maybe a stray Reinertson - our next door neighbors. Laurie Reinertson and I grew up thick as thieves. We'd rake the leaves into piles and jump into them! Next we'd rake them into shapes on the ground - like walls for horse stalls. Then with jump ropes we'd take turns being horses and riders. The horse would have the rope around her waist and the rider would steer her around. Great care was taken to choose the horse's name and what she looked like. "I'm black with white stockings and a star on my head." "My name is Star!" I loved being a black horse. (sheep?)

We likely made a bigger mess out of the leaves than they were before we started. But my Mom's true mission was to wear us out. Mission accomplished. This black horse never had trouble sleeping.

Not the Bullock yard (2014 photo)