We have a leaf situation...

When we chose a house in Zurich, our goal was to have something as similar to our house in the States as possible.  When choosing our 3000 square foot villa surrounded by one-half acre of land, there is one factor that we did not consider...leaves!

Here is the view that greeted us from the Master Bedroom window...

Here is the view one week later...

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a leaf situation!

Well, the "Frau" is on the case.  Master plan - use mower to push leaves to side, use rake to gather leaves to compost pile.  Well, this house has not been occupied for the last 3 years, so surprise! the mower didn't work.  The rake had dry rot, and broke in half.  This is what we did with bending over with the broken head of a rake...

Now, this is far too tempting, so it was go time!

Aww, now back to work you guys!

Clearly this was not going to work with a broken rake and 90% of the yard to go, so off I walk to the local store with the broken rake to communicate with the clerk via the "point and grunt" method.  The third clerk finally understood, said that no store in our town carries rakes and that I had to go to a local home store.  Local, that is, if you have a car!  Half a mile back home, research appropriate bus, half a mile back to bus station, commute to store, get 2 rakes, return home, and still the leaves are there.  As Tom says "the leaves, they mock me". 

Two hours later, the yard is done.  Good thing Tom didn't just have heart surgery, otherwise all that raking might have been hard.  Well, the yard is mostly clear, and we are ready for the 5 days of rain that they are predicting, as well as a rain/snow mixture next weekend.  The ladies went on to enjoy some time at the local park/petting zoo, and Tom took a nap.  Just another day in paradise!