A woman in her forties with a glossy red bob, in a plaid flannel shacket and jeans, raking a pile of red maple leaves on a lawn on a late October Saturday

The Saturday Rake in Late October

The maple comes first, then the tarp, the pile for the children, the bags, and the line at the curb.

Abe Lindgren 2 min read

The Saturday rake in late October begins at the maple by the driveway, where the leaves have banked against the garage door like a drift.

The first quadrant

The raker clears the apron first, dragging the tines against the concrete to pry up the wet maple leaves that have flattened themselves to the surface. The driveway has to be walked on to reach the sidewalk. A few dry leaves spin away; the rest come up in a single mat. The first pile goes onto the grass at the edge of the asphalt, because the driveway is not where the work will stop.

an old blue tarp heaped with red maple leaves on a suburban lawn, its corners weighed down with stones

The tarp

An old tarp is spread on the lawn, its corners weighed down with stones from the border. The raker works out from the maple in a widening sweep, pulling the leaves into windrows, then gathering each windrow in the arms of the rake and walking it to the tarp. The tarp fills like a shallow bed. When it is too full to hold more, two corners are lifted and the whole load is dragged to the bagging station by the garage.

The children's pile

Under the oak in the side yard, the raker builds one pile that is not for the tarp. It is heaped high, loose, with dry leaves from the top of the pile, and the children are allowed to jump into it. They land with a crackle, scatter the leaves, and ask for it to be built again. The raker builds it again. The pile is smaller each time, because the leaves are breaking into pieces, and when the children finally go inside for hot chocolate, the raker rakes the pieces into the tarp like everything else.

Bagging the leaves

The leaves are bagged in the corner of the yard where the garage wall meets the fence. The bags yawn open, held by the raker's knees or set into a metal stand. The leaves are packed down by hand, fistful by fistful, because the dry ones take up more than their weight. The damp ones stick together in clods. Each bag is filled to where the sides bulge, then folded shut and set upright. The raker works until the tarp is empty and the lawn shows through in patches.

The curb

The bags go to the curb in a line, set back from the street just far enough to leave the sidewalk clear. The wind has picked up, and one bag falls over before the raker can set the next one down. It is righted with a leaf gathered from the gutter, then the line is finished. The bags sit in the dusk, waiting for the morning truck.

later that afternoon on the front steps, laughing toward the camera with a mug of hot chocolate in both hands

The last pass

The raker walks the yard once more, the rake held low, scraping the last stray leaves out of the flower beds and off the edge of the lawn. The light has gone gray. The final pile is small enough to carry in the rake's tines to the curb, where it is stuffed into the last bag, which is left open. The rake is carried back to the garage and set on its nail. The rake hangs on the nail, its tines holding a few maple leaflets.