Where is it written that people have to rake the leaves off of their lawns every fall, so that no leaves remain? We have neighbors here in MN and had neighbors in ND who worked daily in the fall to remove any traces of leaves. We are not raking people.

In our ND town the City was of no help to people who needed leaves hauled away. People had to haul them away to the landfill themselves. Of course, this was the City that wouldn’t remove snow from residential streets unless 4 or more inches had fallen. (It’s going to melt eventually anyway, and we don’t have it in our budget to plow anything but major arteries.)

Luverne has a much different attitude about this. I attribute it to the proximity to Northwest Iowa and a Dutch influence regarding neatness. The other day while it was raining we saw several street sweeping machines washing streets. The City sends out leaf suckeruppers several days in October and November to remove leaves that residents have swept into the gutter. Snow of any amount is also plowed up.

We like to leave the leaves for ground cover and pollinators. We sweep up leaves that collect on the sidewalk or deck, though. I remember the smell of burning leaves in the fall when I was a child, and loved it when my mom and dad would make leaf piles for me to jump in. Leaf burning is illegal now, I think. I am glad we have better things to do now than rake.

What are your leaf raking, leaf jumping memories? Are you a raker?