Lauren’s Law: Never-Ending Leaf Raking

Fall is my favorite season. I love the “Goldilocks” weather — not too hot and not too cold. Plus, I can’t get enough of apple cider everything (especially doughnuts), warm drinks, cozy flannel, pumpkins and the list goes on.

While I love seeing all the beautiful leaves in bright orange, yellow and red hues, once they fall in my yard, I shudder thinking of my never-ending leaf raking experience.

I was a junior in high school, hoping to save money for an upcoming school ski trip to Canada. A girlfriend of mine was also saving up. Her boyfriend at the time scored us a job raking leaves in his neighborhood.

My friend and I showed up to the job with a rake apiece. Nothing else.

Across the yard, my friend’s boyfriend and his buddy had state-of-the-art yard equipment as they worked on another neighbor’s yard. Beyond the typical rakes, they had tarps, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, you name it. They knocked out their yard quickly and moved on to their next job.

Our yard was a different story. Leaves fell on our ponytails while we raked throughout an entire afternoon. After several hours and many blisters on our hands, we were still unfinished. We’d have to return the next weekend. Leaves would continue to fall and basically undo all our hard work.

What originally seemed like a high-paying job quickly seemed less attractive once we realized we’d be coming back again. Possibly even multiple times. A never-ending job.

Thankfully, the family took pity on us and only had us return one final time. Lesson learned. Make sure to have the proper equipment when raking leaves.

I quickly forgot that important lesson when I moved into a highly wooded neighborhood a few years ago. My oldest daughter was 2 years old, and her younger sister was only a few weeks old. Leaves were a lower priority until we learned that snow was coming.

With a baby strapped to my chest, our toddler picked up leaves individually and put them into big brown bags, which were larger than her in height. Our yard took as long to rake as you’d expect for a young family of four.

Later that year, my husband and I had two trees professionally cut down because one was dead and another was dangerously close to our oldest daughter’s bedroom window. While not the leading reason, another benefit of cutting the trees has been less leaves.

If only that job in high school allowed my friend and I to cut their trees down, we could have knocked the job out real fast.

Lauren Burke Meyer is a Severna Park native who was inspired to write Lauren’s Law as a humorous play on the well-known Murphy’s Law adage: “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”