Another season begins

By: 
Patrick Fisher, pfisher@newpraguetimes.com

It’s that time again when the leaves begin to turn and people gather them up. When people enjoy apple picking, cider or a stronger harder apple drink. When farmers are out in the fields bringing in their crops and preparing the land for next spring. When children are talking to their parents about what they want to do for Halloween. It’s definitely fall.

When I was younger fall was a time when my parents had my siblings and I help rake up the leaves in our yard. It was a time when burning leaves was something not a lot of people were still doing. More often than not the leaves from our yard were bagged up and picked up by the garbage truck. Of course there may have been some jumping into piles of leaves before they were bagged up. It was something my parents let us do, but first we had to make sure there were no sticks in the pile. There were enough stories from school, church or other groups about how some child had poked out an eye or been paralyzed. Frankly my memories of jumping into crisp leaves and hearing them crunch when you land was something I enjoyed. It was also fun when we had a big enough pile that we could hide in them and then jump out and startle someone. I remember my mom being startled, or at least pretending to be, and then giving us a smile.

More often than not I remember those days being overcast or mostly cloudy and needing some jacket or at least a flannel shirt. Of course it being Minnesota and the northwest part of the state, flannel shirts were almost a requirement. The days when it was sunny and warm out were the best days. Raking up leaves after it had been raining never seemed pleasant. The leaves were wet and sticky and a bit slimy. It was then it seemed more like a chore than something fun.

One thing that has changed is that a few more people are either keeping the leaves to put in a mulch pile for fertilizer to use around their trees or in their garden or they are taking them to the city’s compost pile for the same reason. This fall season seems to be happening faster. It depends on where you are in the state and how badly this summer’s drought hit your area. At least we are having a change of the season with the gold, red and brown of the leaves which is still a great sight.

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