Leaves galore.

Everyone paints the rosy dream of home ownership, and there are lots of pros...including having your own land.  Your very own piece of property to call your own to do whatever you want with!!

And then you realize, when you buy .36 acres like we did that haven't been raked, mowed, or maintained all fall, it's beautiful, but it can be a real pain in the _____.

Seriously.

I wish I took a before picture for you.  The previous owners moved to Delaware 6 months ago and totally let the yard go.  Thankfully, there had been landscaping done, and mulch put down last spring, and they had quite the green thumbs when they lived here, but there were leaves everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  The main yard had been semi raked, maybe once or twice, but all of the landscaping was totally neglected.  There were at least 4-5 inches of compacted leaves on it...the snow and rain didn't make them easier to get up. 

So, between Charlie, my mom, my mother and law and I...we spent hours outside raking.  Hours of catch-up you could say.  And here is what we raked.  (There are two separate pictures because there were two separate piles of leaf bags).

Take a wild guess at how many bags that is...
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57.  No exaggeration.  That's a heck of a lots of leaves!  Luckily this is work for the entire fall season, that in the future will not be done one day.  It was exhausting.  As our neighbor said, "Rome wasn't built in a day."  And he's right.  This will be a process.

Here are the afters.  This is the front yard, at a side view. 

Here is the side yard:

And the back yard that Charlie and my mom did!!!  (See the separate fenced off garden area up front?  Yeah, we didn't touch that, yet).

Our neighbor also told us that the woman who owned the home before loved to garden.  She planted tons of perennials all over the lot, so there will be beautiful surprises this spring/summer.  I can't wait.

My favorite part, though?  Other than the fact that perennials are easier to maintain (mostly weeding involved), she planted peonies, only my favorite flower ever.  White peonies will bloom off the deck.  Yay.  Now that's worth raking for!