Daughter Kate was able to come a third time this year, and she drove down the day before her birthday. It’s a brutal drive to do in one day. After a good night’s sleep, she was ready to celebrate. I prepared salmon and a baked potato for our main meal.
We talked non-stop but paused to have cake that evening. If you look closely, you might be able to see that it was only half a cake, sold that way in the supermarket. It was perfect for us, lasting three days.

The next day was devoted to burning leaves. The lawn people had blown all the leaves onto the burn pile, and it was much too large to be left that way. Kate was all for burning the whole pile, but I was afraid it would take too long and hurt the lawn.
Kate did it my way, using the burn barrel. We were out there from 10 in the morning until after 4 in the afternoon. Kate got a really hot fire going and burned about a third of the pile. I’ll admit I was wrong. It probably would not have taken as long to do all the leaves at the same time. About half way through, I went inside to make us a picnic lunch, since we wouldn’t leave the fire unattended.
A final photo shows Kate still smiling. She had burned about a third of the leaves.



That is a lot of leaves!
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Isn’t it wonderful when help shows up.Birthday cak sounds like good payment.
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Happy birthday Kate.🥰🎉🎈🎊 That’s a lot of leaves to burn Anne.
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Many many returns of the day kate 😉🎂!
Kate again your’s visit. Beautiful half birthday cake! Beautiful photo burning leaves! God bless you, Anne, Tack Care 🙏!
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Belated Happy Birthday to Kate and that cake looks delicious! The kid in me wants to just jump in that pile of leaves … messing them all up again. 😀
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The leaves would have provided a soft landing. I’m sure I would have forgiven you for messing them up
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😀❤️
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Happy Birthday, Kate. I like that you can buy half a cake. Enjoy the visit.
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Burning leaves is a no no here more so during the summer months
How nice she was able to come for a visit, never seen anyone sell half a cake before
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Wonderful that she worked in an extra visit. Burning leaves is a joyous task.
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It should be a joyous task. One neighbor always lets me know she doesn’t like my burning. To be fair, smoke often goes toward her house a few times during each burn.
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The half cake is cool! Our supermarket sells portions of cakes, usually sliced. Or mini cakes. With mini cakes, we can select carrot and chocolate to name some. In our neck of the woods, we have to rake the leaves to the curb or bag them in special brown paper bags for pickup. At this time of the year, we normally have a weather alert regarding fires. I recall the days too when people burned their lawns too. Not around here. I saw that in Massachusetts. So nice to have a visit with Kate helping out. Enjoy!
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And now daughter Lise is here!
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Your cup overflows! Great news for you with more family visiting. Life is good! Enjoy! oxox
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I’m blessed! Hope you had a good start to the week. oxox
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Indeed I did. Be well, lovely lady. oxox
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I love half cakes and pies. We always get half a shoo-fly pie, and sometimes coconut custard, at our local Amish Market. I’ve noticed even the bigger grocery stores are selling pies this way. It’s perfect for just two people.
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