TundraVole of Shadow

I actually got some sleep last night, although it was that category of sleep that is actual work to get--repeated waking, discomfort, iron will power required to stay in bed. This time it was my hips hurting, not my stomach. The sun came out. I saw frost sparkling on my neighbor's roof when I looked out the bedroom window. The sun remained only intermittently, but it gleamed beautifully through the leaves of the maple trees when it was there. I managed an hour or so of pulling up thistles and raking up five bags of leaves. The latest concern is that one shouldn't remove leaves from the ground because various insects have laid eggs or made cocoons among them. However, I think I can safely tidy up the front yard without being responsible for the extinction of any beneficial insects. My haphazard lawn care leaves plenty of places where there are still leaves, and there's also the back yard, which always retains a lot of leaves. I saw Danish, who is Irish the contractor's wife, as she left to do errands, and we exchanged comments about how fast the leaves had come down in the rain of the last couple of days. She said they were leaving theirs scattered over the yard because they "looked Halloweeny." I told her I loved that, because her leaves were so pretty. They have a sugar maple tree in the front yard, and those are the most beautiful of all fall foliage--patterns of red and yellow on leaves that have such a pleasing shape that they look as if they were made with a cookie cutter. Our tree is a Norway maple, and the fall leaves usually curl up and turn brown, so I don't mind disposing of them. However, this year they are looking nicer than usual on the tree--subdued yellow-green, and occasional streaks of yellow-orange. They do make a lovely tapestry at my window.