Autumntime

There's one thing I don't like all that much about Oregon. I mean, it's a beautiful place and the people are friendly and I love being by the coast and I don't mind the rain. But there's one time when the rain kind of gets me down. Autumn. When I'm raking and raking and raking the leaves all over the yard (we have a LOT of trees), my kids ask if they can jump into the leaf piles and I have to say no. Maybe I'm too protective, but I don't want them covered in wet rotting leaf slime and slugs. And when we walk along the sidewalks to get William from school every day, the way is covered with leaves. But there's no crunch underfoot. It's more like a slosh-slosh. And you have to be careful that you don't slip. So, yeah, I miss dry crisp fall weather that leads to crunchy leaves on the ground that you can pile and jump into. One neat thing, though, about the wet leaves on the sidewalk is that they leave leaf-profiles where they were allowed to sit for a long time and moulder. It kind of looks cool after they have been removed to have their profiles on the ground.