The Annual Elephant Parade

Either because I've become acclimatized or the warm weather is lingering longer this year, I've as yet not had any occasion to wear a long coat.  In fact, it's quite common to see people in short-sleeves in the middle of the day.  But despite the temperate weather, the general scenery around us is undoubtedly a wintry one.  Most of the deciduous trees are already denuded of leaves, their grey and bare branches dangling and swaying in the wind like leftover Halloween skeletons.


We were informed by the City a couple of weeks ago that there would only be one curbside leaf pick-up for each residence this year, sometime between November 14 and December 30.  Before long mounds of leaves began to pile up by the sides of the street in our neighborhood, to the extent that it became difficult to maneuver in and out of it in a car. Last weekend I reminded our yard service to schedule us for our annual leaf, roof, and gutter cleaning before the November 14 deadline.  A team of men came yesterday equipped with blowers, rakes, tarps, and ladders and gave our yard a complete makeover; in a few hours all the leaves that had accumulated on the lawn, driveway, deck, planter boxes, roofs, etc. were miraculously lifted and deposited by the curb in front of the house.    And to our pleasant surprise, on our way to the gym this morning we saw the leaf-vacuuming trucks already hard at work at the front of our neighborhood, several days ahead of schedule.  I couldn't help wondering if somebody in our neighborhood has some special connection to the City Hall, for we seem always to get the most coveted city services before others.  (For example, our street, for no apparent reason, got resurfaced this spring.)  


Here is a video of the ponderous elephants on parade (or the leaf-vacuuming trucks in action) at the front of the house this morning.