I really dislike raking leaves. Only shoveling snow is worse in my book. My backyard is completely covered with leaves, so I thought Cubbie and I would be productive on my day off and clear out most of the leaves.

I got out the rake and the yard waste bin and I even put band-aids on my thumbs to hopefully prevent myself from getting blisters!

I told myself I was going to rake all the leaves inside my fence, and then I would save the rest of the backyard for another day. (This was my motivation. I will only rake if I don’t feel like I’ll have to be doing it for very long).

So I start raking and raking. I put the yard waste bin on the ground so I can just rake the leaves into it. I do a bunch around the bin, then I decide to make several piles around the yard so I don’t have to rake the leaves so far. Everything is going fine for about ten minutes, then I can tell Cubbie is bored watching me rake. He is in the mood to play. Cubbie starts running through all the piles I just raked! AHHH!

Next, Cubbie decides to climb inside the yard waste bin. Why, I have no idea. I’m sure it was just something new to do. When he climbed out, he dragged most of the leaves I put in there with him.

During this I keep raking the leaves he messed up back into piles. I think I have too many leaves to fit in my yard waste bin so I decide to go inside quick to grab some big yard bags. Cubs follows me inside and grabs one of his new toys. He walks back over to the door with it in his mouth and I say, “No. You’re not taking that outside. It’s new, and it will get dirty and covered in leaves outside.” Cubbie drops the toy. So, I go down the stairs to the door and open it to go back outside. As soon as he sees me opening the door, he picks up the toy again and darts past me into the yard. Great.

He’s already dropped the toy right into the leaves. I figure there’s no point in putting it back inside now.

Once again, I go back to raking and Cubbie tries to bury his toy in the pile of leaves. I give up.

The whole raking experience was completely unproductive. Yes, I filled up my yard waste bin, but now there are even more leaves than before and I don’t want to re-rake what I already did plus everything else. I wish I had a lawn mower or something that would just bag the leaves for me. Or I wish Cubbie would stop playing and pick up a rake to help.

Posted under Cubbie stories