With temperatures dropping and the sun setting earlier and earlier, one only needs to look towards the calendar – and the thermometer! – to see that it is once again the season of fall.
And with the transition in seasons comes large changes to your local environment. Most noticeably, all the leaves on the trees dry up and turn red before falling off!
With all these trees shedding their leaves, your lawn will be easily covered in an ankle-deep layer of fallen foliage within no time flat.
This, of course, means that it is once again time to rake the leaves, or blow them off your law.
This is a response that is no surprise – after all that hard work you put into cultivating that thick, lush carpet of grass, it would be an utter shame to let it be hidden by all the falling leaves!
All these leaves that you get off your lawn will obviously have to go somewhere, however.
It would be silly to assume that they simply vanish without a trace.
Normally, the most environmentally friendly and responsible thing to do would be to add all the leaves you have collected into your compost pile.
Failing that, piling it all up so you can dispose of them later in proper areas.
Alas, these leaves are constantly falling every day, and they are indiscriminate in where they land.
Naturally, these leaves will end up on the road as well, pushed to the side of the road from the draft thrown up by passing cars.
It should be noted that the pile that accumulates here can get very thick. This fact came into play on the 5th of November when a UPS driver was making his usual delivery rounds in the city of Elkhart, Indiana.
As per usual, UPS driver Jordan Weaver had pulled up to the curb of a residential home to deliver the post.
In this case, a box for the house’s resident, who happened to be a mother that was out in the yard at the time, using a leaf blower to blow the leaves off her lawn.
He handed her the box that was her package, and the two parted ways – the woman back into her house, and Weaver to his delivery van.
It was then he spotted something that nearly stopped his heart and made him freeze in horror.
There, hidden almost entirely by the leaves piling up against the kerb, was a little boy lying down in the dried leaves.
The boy was completely obscured by the fallen foliage, and Weaver had only noticed the child’s presence thanks to the visibility of the boy’s hat.
Otherwise, the boy was basically invisible to just about any other driver that was driving down the street.
It was sheer luck that Weaver had already parked his vehicle on the other side of the road – he could have easily driven over the boy while making his rounds.
Thankfully, the boy was completely unharmed, and had leaped up and bounded after his mother – who was the parcel’s recipient – when she headed back into the house.
This does, however, highlight just how careful we ought to be when driving around during this time of the year!