The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Leaves

This epic tale took place on Dec 16th - the first and only time we raked our leaves all year! For some reason, Emry woke up early that morning.  She walked into our bedroom and said "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up, sleepies!  We must go, yeees, we must go at once." 

Maren and I gave each other a look like, "WTF is she talking about?"

We dragged ourselves out of bed and had some breakfast.  It was an unusually warm December day, in the low 60s.  We had put off doing the leaves all fall because... 1. doing the leaves blows, 2. the backyard didn't look too bad(our opinion, not the neighbors), and 3. we've been so busy this fall that yardwork was at the bottom of our priority list.

I had been feeling sick the day before, so I wasn't really looking forward to doing the leaves, but we didn't want to waste the beautiful day.  After breakfast, the four of us trudged out into the yard to start.  After about 5 minutes, Whitney started crying and Emry said "She's always hungry.  She always needs to feed.  She must eat.  All she gets is nasty Orcses." 

Again Maren and I were like "WTF?" 

Maren decided to go inside to feed Whit, so Emry and I were stuck doing the leaves by ourselves.  Trying to preserve the earth, we did the leaves using the tarp method again, and stored them in a big pile on top of our garden to be tilled into the soil.  Eventually Maren and Whit came back out to join us...

After giving Emry and Whit a couple of tarp rides, I was wore out.  I think the illness from the day before was catching up to me.  We went back inside to play a little bit before lunch.  When we got inside Emry said to Maren, "Master should be resting, Master needs to keep up his strength."  This time Maren decided to ignore the strange comment.

After playing inside for a little bit we ate lunch and put the girls down for a nap.  While they were napping, we finished the leaves.  I decided to transplant one of the bushes in the landscaping.  When I was packing the dirt around the freshly planted shrub, I felt a dirt clod tumbling around inside my glove.  I took it off, shook out the dirt and finished the project.

Later that afternoon Emry woke up from her nap and played in the living room.  She turned to Maren and I and hissed, "They do not see what lies ahead, when Sun has faded and Moon is dead."

Again Maren and I went into "WTF? mode."  We asked if she was feeling okay, but she just went on playing like everything was normal.

That evening, Maren and I were cutting some vegetables for dinner and Maren asked me "Where's your ring?"  I had remembered taking it off earlier in the day to wash my hands, so I went to look on the  bathroom counter.  To my dismay, the ring wasn't there.  I didn't remember taking it off any other time during the day.

I took a long, slow walk back to the kitchen and told Maren I didn't have any idea where it was.  Emry came running through the kitchen and scowled, "We wants it, we needs it.  Must have the precious.  They stole it from us.  Sneaky little hobbitses.  Wicked, tricksy, false!"  I finally told Emry that she was creeping us out, and asked what she was talking about.  But she just ignored me and hobbled out into the dining room for dinner.

While we were eating I suddenly remembered the dirt clod in my glove earlier that day.  I wondered if maybe my ring had fallen off inside my glove while I was digging?  Maybe my ring was actually the dirt clod that was rattling around inside my glove?!  I told Maren, "I think I know where my ring might be!"

By this time it was already dark outside, so I ran to grab my headlamp and stormed out the door.  On my way out, I saw Maren laughing and shaking her head.  Meanwhile Emry whispered in a raspy voice, "He wants the precious.  Always he is looking for it.  And the precious is wanting to go back to him...But we mustn't let him have it."

I turned on the headlamp and started crawling on the ground.  I went near the area I had shaken out my glove earlier that day.  Of course our next door neighbors had to be backing out of their driveway right at that exact moment.  They stopped their car for a second, probably to try to figure out what I was doing.  About 30 seconds later, our neighbor across the street happened to be taking her trashcans out to the curb and hollered "Are you looking for something?"

"No Captain Obvious, I'm just making sure I didn't miss any leaves today!"...is what I should have said.  But I ignored the stupidity of her question, and told her the story.

I was only about 3 minutes into the search, when I found the ring lying right there in the grass!  I was so excited I sprinted inside to show Maren and the girls.  Maren was sitting on the floor with Whitney and Emry, and I danced a little jig to celebrate.  Emry got up and danced with me, and Maren helped Whitney stand up to dance with us.  Maren grabbed the camera to take a picture of how ridiculous I looked with my headlamp on.

Ever since I found the ring, Emry has been back to her old self again.  No more strange mumblings, talking about 'the precious', or crazy predictions of what lies ahead.  We can only assume that the power of the ring returning to its rightful owner had set everything straight again.  For now, it seems everything is safe in the land of the Smith house.