Some people love to walk, some people love to run, some people love to bike. I love to weed and rake. We live in an ideal place for weeding and raking. Our little corner of the world is cut into a forest. This is such an excellent time of the year for weeding and raking - nice temperatures, no mosquitoes. Our yard is ringed by about forty White pine trees that are about seventy feet high. The White Pine loses fifty per cent of its needles every Fall and our Birches, Oaks and Maples drop all of their leaves. It's a rake junkie's paradise. The weeding is constant also as we have thirteen flower beds, one herb garden, one grape vinyard, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, asparagus, and rhubarb patches, besides the main garden.
Every Spring and Fall I rake our hillside down to the lake and I deposit the leaves along our meandering path and the needles on various places that can use their acidic content. In retirement, it is so great to get out every day for two or three hours and fiddle around. Connecting with nature and its healing powers is so good for the soul. Gratitude to God for all our blessings sings from my soul as my senses are bombarded with the warmth of the sun, the kaleidoscope of color, the crunch of fallen leaves and the soft gold carpet of pine needles. And as I rake, my meandering mind rests on the abundance of pine needles. One mature tree must drop millions of needles each year and these needles contain acid and is there a use for the millions of needles that fall every year. Could they be used to make gasoline or trigger energy of some sort? Maybe this has already been studied but maybe not. More food for thought as this generation is now really looking into new uses of our natural resources.
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