Leaves, leaves, leaves

They're everywhere! Run for your lives!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!

You know what comes with a nice, big yard with lots of mature, pretty trees? You guessed it: leaves! For days on end! And this picture is just one small portion of our yard. We have birch trees, maple trees, a willow tree and apple trees all shedding right now.

Travis and I went back and forth on when to start raking and if we should maybe get a second rake so that we could both rake at the same time. Then we could rake all weekend. And maybe next weekend too.

I finally gave in and we bought this:

The Mac Daddy of All Leaf Blowers.

You know what's still sad about this? One tank of gas only got about 1/3 of our yard done. Travis spent a his entire Saturday blowing leaves. Let's pause for a moment to think about how long that would have actually taken with a rake. Can you imagine? I believe this was money well spent.
This is just one of about 4 piles of leaves that Travis managed to wrangle up. Now we just have to decide what to do with them. My mom is a fan of burning, although I'm certain we'd have the DNR fire fighters arresting us in no time if we do that. We could easily fill a bagillion trash bags. I suggested putting an ad on Craigslist. You never know what people will take for free. Think we'll get any takers?