Cornucopia! or the Magic Leaf Word

Since my grandpa died in March Gaga has been on her own to take care of things he always took care of. Paying the bills, tending the garden, managing the yard, replacing smoke alarm batteries..etc. This week gaga was having a "leaf emergency". She had leaves in her yard and her yard man wanted to charge $50 to take care of it. Gaga thought that was too much and asked if the boys would be willing to help her out. Of course they would.

We got really lucky because Tuesday was a gorgeous day. We ate our noon meal and headed down to clean up Gaga's yard. As soon as we got there the boys got to work raking.

Chip took the east side of the yard and Dill the west.
I started the leaf blower and Sweet helped gaga bag up some leaves that were ready.

Each time Sweet would put the bushel basket on it's side to fill up with leaves she would say cornucopia! She explained that the basket looked like a cornucopia with the pretty leaves flowing out, that it was the magic word to help with the yard work plus it is her favorite word in the world.

It took us about 2 1/2 hours to clean up her entire lawn. It wasn't all work though. The boys took time to chase each other around the yard and wrestle down the backyard hill. Gaga and I laughed and laughed as we bagged up leaves. Sweet just couldn't be left out so she jointed the fun too. At one time I looked over and Chip had both of them trapped. I asked Dill how he was doing and he waved and yelled, "Great! I think I am winning!" At that point Chip had his body pinned and his head was one with the ground with Chips hand holding it down. The only thing free was the waving hand. It was hilarious.

In all, we raked up 14 garbage sacks full of leaves. And those babies were packed. Each time the bag would get full the kids would call me over to sit on the bag and "crush" the leaves down. I guess this extra weight I am carrying came in handy...lol

My dad originally said he wanted the leaves for his compost pile. When we were finished I called and asked if he was planning on renting a U-Haul to get them home. When he found out how many leaves there were he changed his mind. So, we loaded the bags in the van and went to the brush pile.

Even though the pile was afire (see the smoke?) it didn't stop Chip from climbing to the top of it. Boys will be boys.

After two trips we cleaned up the yard equipment, washed our hands and sat down for supper.

Gaga fed us ham sandwiches, pickles, celery, cookies, jello with bananas and a cinnamon roll. The picklets each got a can of pop which is a rarity at 5:00 at night.

After supper the picklets thought it was time to try and climb the shed again. They have been trying to get on top of this shed for years and years. The shed is at the bottom of a hill and just isn't' easy to get on. It really looks like you can run and jump right on top of it but you can't. Well, this time they succeeded!

Not by running and jumping but by dumping things out of Rubbermaid tubs that I had in the van, stacking them up and climbing on them.

What ever works is what I say as long as you put everything back.

I guess the funnest part was the getting down part. 1-2-3 jump!
They jumped several times but they just wouldn't jump all together. LOL

We left right around 6:00. It was getting cold and dark. Here are the picklets and their great-grandma after a long day working in the yard.


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