War of the Leaves

The leaves have begun falling in our neighborhood. Actually, only the leaves off my lone tree in the front yard and they are still green, albeit a pale yellowish green.


The middle-sized kids in the neighborhood spotted the first opportunity to play autumn games - leaf pile jumping!

So they diligently began raking the leaves into a pile. There was the usual arguments of this age group - "I don't have a rake," and "They won't share the rakes," and "My rake isn't as good as theirs," and of course, at least one "He hit me with the rake!" That last one came when the toddlers attempted their hands at the rakes and well, let's just say Paul doesn't have a lot of raking under his belt to fully understand the concept of proper rake handling.


And as is par for the course, the minor arguments overtook the fun of the afternoon when they escalated to who got to jump in the pile. The neighbor boy jumped in and then they scooped the pile up. Then my son jumped in and again, they scooped up the pile up. The neighbor girl, who is quite the organizational queen, determined that she wanted ALL of the leaves in the yard into the pile before she jumped.


Andrew jumped in again. And the neighbor girl told him to get out, because it was her turn (and yes, it was her turn). Andrew said something along the lines of "No" or "Too bad" or "I can do what I want" and the neighbor girl lost her patience with him and said something to the effect of "Then I'm not playing with you again."


And the neighbor boy, brother to the neighbor girl, left with his sister because his allegience is with her, despite the fact that she is a girl.

And Andy cried. And we sat down on the porch and talked about it. And since he wouldn't not stop crying, I sent him to his room until he could calmly talk with me.

I sat down at the kitchen table and looked out the window. And just started laughing. Because the neighbor kids had pulled a large Rubbermaid-type tote over to our yard and were confiscating the leaves.

They filled it up and dragged it to their yard. And I have to say, I had no qualms with it and, in fact, was impressed with their line of thinking.

Finally, Andrew came out of his room and we talked again. And I followed him over to the neighbor's house to apologize to the girl. The kids had gone inside momentarily, so we walked up to the door. And don't think for a moment that he didn't notice the pile of leaves in their yard.

He apologized, she said it was fine, he asked them to come out and play. They declined (and for good reason, I might add...teach the kid a lesson about behavior and consequences). I think he said something about taking the leaves back to our yard, and again, they declined.

So he stomped out of the door, whining about how they wouldn't help him.

I looked at him and told him his choice: Option A, go inside for the evening or Option B, get the leaves himself.


He was in their yard alone, filling the tote with the leaves as I walked into my house.

Then the neighbor kids returned to their yard. I couldn't hear the words but my Hollywood mind filled in the blanks.

"Hey, kid what do you think you're doing?"

"These are my leaves and I'm taking them back."


""Posession is 9/10 of the law in this county and these leaves are sitting on our property. You'd be wise to remove your hiney beyond our property line or else there might be some serious consequences."

"You had no right to steal my leaves. I'm taking them back."

"Oh yeah? And how are you going to do that? This is our tote and don't be thinking that you're going to use it for your unsavory motives."


And they dumped the leaves out.

Whereupon, Andrew came running back in tears. And whereupon, I lost my cool with everyone within 10 feet and found my own dern rake and started yelling about how there were still plenty of flippin' leaves in our yard for him to rake up and jump in.

"But I want THOSE leaves!"

"Gah! Stop it. Look around the yard! I will rake up the dern leaves for you right now! You can knock it off right now or you can go inside!" And to make my point crystal clear, I grabbed a branch of our tree and shook it violently, prompting several more leaves to fall off.

"See?"

"I'll help you, Kristin," came the voice of the neighbor girl. And she started raking too. See, as much as she wants to hold her own in the War of the Leaves, someone raised her to be a good person and she can't stand injustice - the injustice of the parent of the blubbering neighbor boy having to rake up leaves because she and her brother, um, confiscated the original pile. Basically, she's a good girl at heart although it wouldn't suprise me in the least to find out that she was helping me so that they could keep the original pile. It doesn't matter, I like her a lot.

I handed the rake to Andrew and went inside. They raked silently side by side for a few minutes and then she headed across the street to her yard.

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the neighborhood as the two piles of leaves and their respective owners stayed separated by the street.

And then darkness fell across the land and all went inside to their respective homes.

And the leaves let out a sigh of relief.