Raking leaves on Rauber Street in Tree City USA
By Kathryn Ross
I have a friend who, at this time of year, spends much of her time raking and disposing of the leaves in her yard. She doesn’t like it, but unfortunately, she lives on one of those village streets that keeps winning us the distinction of being a Tree City USA. Wellsville has proudly flown the Tree City USA flag for over 30 years thanks to the stewardship of the local Tree Board.
My friend would much rather be playing in the dirt in her garden, cutting back perennials, planting bulbs and weeding and whatever else gardeners do this time of year.
I love autumn. The many hues of red, orange, yellow and ochre colored leaves brightening the hillsides under a waning sun beneath a brilliant blue-sky blooms in my heart. It is well worth shivering in the cold winter months, sniffling in the spring and melting during summer.
But I live in an apartment with no yard and no trees and no leaves to rake, so I can be euphoric about leaves.
When I was a kid growing up on Rauber Street the entire length of the street was under a canopy of towering maple trees. Every fall they shed leaves by bushels. I know this because my friends, Nonie and Gail, and I would ride our bikes down the street and collect the leaves in bushel baskets and carry them back to my yard.
There were only two trees and a lilac bush in my yard. They didn’t supply nearly the quantity of leaves we needed to gather into a pile to jump into.
My father had a garage made out of tin whose corner was under the sprawling limbs of one of the trees. It was the perfect place to drop down onto the roof and fling ourselves from the roof into a pile of leaves below. It was joyous.
I remember one year Nonie had a white skirt covered with graphics of multicolored popsicles. Even the belt had popsicles. One afternoon she was jumping off the tin roof and the hem of her skirt caught on one of the tin corners and ripped. She left for home in tears to face the inevitable music and Gail and I commiserated with her.
But we just didn’t pile up leaves to jump into. We were enamored with the TV show Bonanza and liked to pretend that we were Ben’s daughters and Adam’s and Hoss’ and Little Joe’s younger sisters.
When we weren’t galloping around the backyard on our pretend horses, we were inside the ranch house that we had traced out with leaves on the green lawn. It looked kind of like a blueprint, with its living room and bedrooms and kitchen outlined, but for us, it was The Ponderosa.
I often wonder today what my dad thought when he came home from work and found his yard covered with maple leaves when he didn’t have a maple tree. Of course, the ropes and clumsily fashioned bridles hanging on the white picket fence might have been a dead giveaway that it was me and my friends and not some errant autumn wind scattering the leaves all over his yard.
The only thing I can recall him saying was “stay off the garage roof.”
“Yeah,” like that was going to happen.
I still love fall, the smell of it and the beauty of it and while my eyes gauge when the trees are at their peak, I’ve also found the state’s I love New York leaf peeping website.
This is the third 2025 I LOVE NY Fall Foliage Report for New York State. Reports are obtained from more than 90 volunteer field observers and reflect expected color conditions for the coming weekend. Reports are issued every Wednesday afternoon. I LOVE NY defines “peak” as the best overall appearance the foliage will have during the season, considering color transition, brilliance, and leaf droppage.
New York State’s first bursts of peak fall color are anticipated to arrive this weekend in some parts of the Adirondacks and Catskills, with near-peak and midpoint-of-change foliage spreading through much of the rest of the state, according to the field reports from observers for the Empire State Development Division of Tourism’s I LOVE NY program.
I may no longer be able to jump off a roof into a pile of leaves, but my spirit does and I can enjoy watching leaves burst into color as my seasons change.
Kathryn Ross is a longtime writer, journalist, and community activist in Wellsville NY. You can reach her anytime, kathr_2002@yahoo.com
