No wonder Arbor Day is in the spring

By Carl Sullenberger: It's that time of year again when the beautiful fall colors turn the lush Ohio landscape into vibrant yellows and crisp reds. The cool mornings give way to sun-warmed afternoons as the holiday season brings friends and family together.

It's also when the bloody leaves start falling from the diseased squirrel homes you should have had transformed into sawdust when they were small and didn't cost a year's college tuition to take down and remove. It is also a glorious time of sore muscles and finding slimy little snails in your ears.

I fell for the fall just like everyone else. I took some breath-taking photos around the county that blaze with color. Then, I went home last Thursday and every single leaf from my 13 trees had taken a powder and landed squarely in my yard in one day. Even the wind conspired against me, blowing the nasty tree trash right onto the landscaping where it welded itself to the $10,000 worth of mulch I installed this summer.

My backyard is still mostly dirt, or more accurately mud, with a mixture of bug parts and doggie doo thrown in for flavor. The wind swirls inside the fence neatly piling the detritus in spots inaccessible to human beings. The blower and rakes are exercises in futility as that wonderful fall breeze keeps returning them to the very niche I just pulled them from.

The resident flea-bitten squirrels are greatly amused by the tall knuckle dragger who seems incapable of learning that leaves don't like to be bagged. They just scurry in front of the back sliding glass door every now and then to laugh at the dogs. The dogs for their part seem puzzled that I don't take a moment to whack one of the bushy-tailed miscreants, so they give it what for and why.

Last year my mulching machine, also known as a device that turns leaves into dust that becomes brown boogers in your nose, died. This left me with two rakes, one of which looks like a professional hockey player's smile, and a huge box of plastic bags to fill.

I compounded my original mistake of liking trees with asking for help. It is never wise to have a supervisor who has been paying on your life insurance policy for 25 years. The boss kept my nose to the leaf bag for two days until we had 30 bags stuffed and awaiting the unlucky people from the waste removal company.

I survived but I'm not at all certain that was a good idea. I have sore muscle in places I didn't know I had places. My calves, arms, back, front, and both sides are as stiff as an undertaker's underwear. My formerly straight back has an odd curve to it and I think I'm having a couple of heart attacks simultaneously. It took two naps before I could get enough energy to go to bed both nights.

Of course, I'm quite proud I got most of my lawn clutter up so early. I generally get about half up over a period of a few weeks and then let the rest coalesce into a gooey layer to be scraped up in the spring.

This year I have them bagged, but now I have to get them to the tree lawn. (What an odd thing to call that little strip of grass that doesn't have a single tree in it and you can't use it because it belongs to whoever owns the road.) I still can't get my arms above my head and I need to lift and carry all those bags I stuffed so full because I'm too cheap to use a few extra.

I suppose I'll ask the boss for assistance and she'll induce me to get the job done. After all, she has that insurance to look forward to.