A long-expected day of raking

As I left the house this morning to go over to my new house to remove the tarps I had been using to catch paint drips yesterday, I glanced up at the oak tree in the front lawn and saw that it was now devoid of leaves. That's it, then. All the leaves are down. No need to wait until the end of the day to rake. One last raking, and then we're done for the year.

Easier said than done. Raking took about three hours, with a break for lunch. It was 40 degrees (F) outside today, as opposed to the 60 degrees that it was yesterday (that's 4.4 degrees C compared to 15.6 degrees C.) I wore a black sweatshirt and sweatpants, an Irish tweed cap, and leather gloves, which got thoroughly soaked by handling the wet leaves. After I was 90% of the way done it started to rain ever so slightly. So when I was done, I was completely chilled.

But it's done, dammit. Three weekends of raking, done.

Now I get to look forward to Winter and shoveling the sidewalks for two houses on opposite sides of town.