It has been cold and raining off and on for the past week. All my leaves have not fallen from their trees in my yard yet so I have not bothered to begin raking. In some places they are at least shin deep and all the rain has matted them down. It should be fun trying to rake them and get them in the little paper bags that this state requires us to use. Leaves and yard debris must go to a recycling place rather than into the garbage so they can be turned into mulch. At $2.50 PER BAG and I will need about 150 bags it gets pretty expensive to cart off leaves. Then, I live on a private road, so to get the town to pick up the leaves I must haul them to the nearest public street and carefully place them so they will not be able to be hit by passing cars or fall over into the road or spill their contents. I can get about six bags in my car at a time and drive about 1/4 mile to the nearest public street, which counting the number of trips will use about five gallons of gas. All this to protect the environment.