Leaf House / Maze

In the fall when I was a kid, we'd gather at the house down the street (home of the Chicken Pox Giver) and make elaborate house plans with fallen leaves. They would center around the two backyard trees. Two groups would each make a house and then we'd visit / spy on the other group's house or host / defend our house from our leaf neighbors.

When my kids were preschool-ish age, I made a leaf house for them. Except that they had a different vision. Where I saw rooms of a house, they saw passageways: a giant leaf maze.

Every year since, Ganoush especially looks forward to building a giant leaf maze. After a full week of rain, bringing almost three inches of wet, we've had a dry weekend. The leaves are again crispy, not soggy, and just right for constructing. We set to work. I used the leaf blower to gather the leaves to the corners as she raked them into paths. We had conflicting visions and misunderstandings, but they all worked out.

Here are two photos merged to show the front yard view from near the porch.

Typically, the extra rules for Leaf Maze Tag are that It can walk through walls but everyone else can only use doorways. Usually, the game devolves until the chased start making their own doorways and it goes from there.

In recent years past, we have learned that a leaf maze left long kills the grass. Quicker than Brigadoon, this leaf maze lasted only a few hours before we raked it into the street for pick-up.

Our backyard leaves won't drop for at least a fortnight, so we have plans to make a slightly more lasting maze back there. After a few days, we'll rake those leaves onto all of my perennials and tuck them in snug for winter.