At this time of year, my meticulous neighbours are doing their best.

They are removing all the unsightly tree leaves from the ground.

They put them in brown paper bags to be taken away.

Then in the spring?

They buy compost.

The compost and soil they buy?

Much of it comes from these leaves.

Me?

I’m not a hoarder.

Hoarders drive me nutty.

Though I do collect firewood.

I would also love to collect leaves.

All of the big bags of leaves.

It would so wonderful to collect all of the leaves from the neighbourhood and pile them up.

Bag upon bag of leaves, piled up into a three story mountain of leaves.

People could jump into them.

You could get lost in them.

Perhaps someone could even carve out a kind of ‘snow fort’ in the leaves.

I guess that would be a leaf fort.

It likely would not meet fire code.

As much as I would love to make the leaf pile to end all leaf piles - the ultimate leaf pile, I have a different agenda for the leaves.

I want to turn them all into dirt - fertile dirt. The soil in my part of the world isn’t very rich. I want to make it better. With better soil, we could grow more food.

I want everyone to keep the leaves close to their home and turn it into soil.

I don’t think that they think the same as I do with regard to the leaves.

Perhaps I could ask them.

And then? We could grow lettuce. More leaves. Only this time? We could eat them.

Then the soil we make?

I’m happy to let the plumbing take that part away.