My neighbors are so on the ball. All day last Saturday they worked on their yard filling the city-issued orange bags with leaves and grape vines. The city will pick them up at no charge; yet another benefit of living in Salt Lake City instead of the suburbs. Mike and I have never been on the ball enough to get our bags filled in time to let the city take them for us, but the garbage bins are huge enough that it’s not an issue.

Last week Mike picked up the leaves with lawn mower. Our yard looked good until the next morning when more leaves fell. Sometimes I worry about whether our neighbors resent our lack of yard pride.

I remember a time when all of us were together. Our next door neighbor said, “We have to get the leaves raked.” I was about to give her my flippant reply, “Just do what we do. Leave them until the wind blows them onto the neighbor’s yard,” but then I remembered that SHE was the neighbor. She continued, “I wouldn’t care so much, but we don’t even have a tree.” The next day, Mike and I raked our leaves.

When I was a kid, it was important to me to get all the leaves raked up because I didn’t want leaves in my snowman, snow fort or whatever else I was building in snow that year. It has been so long since I’ve built anything in the snow that I almost forgot how important it is to rake up the leaves. Not even admonishment from my neighbor reminded me.