Jumping In the Leaves

    I first visited Evansville in the fall, just after Halloween.  I marveled at what seemed to be an endless array of Victorian houses - block after block of them that I passed by as I rode through town on a borrowed bicycle.   The other marvel was the leaves.  The trees were full of the most amazing colors and shapes.  Brown oak leaves, scarlet and yellow maple leaves, golden birch leaves, and some trees that had green, yellow, and red leaves all on the same tree.  Every leaf seemed to be a jewel to be taken back to California and preserved.  Everywhere I went, the air was perfumed with that sharp tang that is unique to leaves as they change color and which cannot be compared to anything except itself. When I wasn't riding through town, I was walking through leaves, hearing them rustle and crunch underfoot.  

       I noticed that there were huge piles of leaves heaped up against the curb of most of the houses.  In Southern California, there might be a flurry of leaves skittering down the streets in the city for a day or so, and in the mountains there would be a carpet of oak leaves and pine needles on the ground - a comfortable  blanket against the snow for small hibernating animals - but the leaves in Wisconsin were just massive towers in comparison, heaped up into hills well above knee height, and row upon row of them marching down the street.  And they just begged to be jumped into.  

    Now to be fair, I'd never had an opportunity to try this before, so I just launched myself toward a pile and hoped for the best.  Within seconds I made two rather alarming discoveries:  leaves are a poor cushion between one's backside and the street, and if you jump into a pile that is over head height when you land, you will inhale leaves.  I should have held my breath, but no one thought to inform me of that.

    When we moved to Evansville a couple of years later, we settled into the annual autumn routine of raking the leaves out of our yard and toward the curb.  This activity could span several weeks as each tree in our yard, and those of our neighbors, lost their leaves at different times.  No sooner had all the leaves been raked up than another tree would lose all its leaves, and the cycle would have to start all over again.  We did our best to compost them, but gosh, the amount seemed huge.  One year we decided to leave them where they had fallen only to discover that the leaves had formed a mat during the winter which had killed all the grass underneath.  We were from California.  What did we know?

    This year I had a brilliant idea.  Instead of raking all the leaves toward the curb or compost pile, I would throw heaps of them into the chicken run as bedding.  This would be an environmentally sound, economical, and sustainable way to dispose of them and would save on using straw bedding in the chicken run, at last during the time the leaves were falling.  The leaves would absorb the droppings, and the whole thing would compost down nicely.  

      I gathered up a good-sized pile of leaves, shoved it into the chicken run, and waited to see what would happen.  At first the chickens were suspicious, but in moments it was chicken ecstasy.  The girls jumped into the leaves like small, feathered children, and with a great deal more grace than I had.   

Clever Elizabeth (left) and Isis (right) make their first foray into the leaves

Isis (left) invites sister Judy (above right) down the ramp to enjoy the fun.

    Initially there were lot of hesitant "Hey, what's this?" clucks followed by what I can only describe as chicken laughter. They scratched and scuffled through the leaves, tossing them everywhere. They were truly having fun.  I chucked in another big pile of leaves a few days later and watched the happy pandemonium start all over again.  Had I known it would be such a hit, I would have set some leaves aside for another round or two.  I considered asking our neighbor if I could take some of hers, but Harvest gave me a stern look, and I decided against it.  Still, the chickens did as good a job as any leaf shredder, and the endless raking was reduced.  Now that I know the girls like to play in the leaves, I can give them lots and lots next year.

    As the weather begins to edge ever closer toward winter, the girls don't have leaves to play in, but I try to give them an hour or so outside the run on sunny days.  This afternoon, I found all six of them having a dust bath in the last remnants of the leaves that had spilled out of the compost pile.  Fun is where you find it.