New marriage-saving device: tow-behind lawn sweeper

While we are on a tight budget in anticipation of 6 weeks without my paycheck, we couldn't resist the Craigslist ad for an Agri-Fab 46" leaf sweeper.  I may love fall, but raking a half-acre yard 2-3 times per fall is not my idea of a good time.  Shayne also tends to get extremely cranky during this chore, so there are no fun, playful leaf fights or happy romantic fall scenes in our yard...  Last year the leaves fell so late that we were raking wet leaves in the snow, and Shayne got so crabby that I vowed to hire a leaf service next year to preserve our my sanity. 

Well, here were are at "next year", but with no money to spare to hire a service.  Call me lazy, but I know that having a new baby this year, we'd never, ever get the yard raked in a timely manner.  Enter the lawn sweeper.

This nifty gadget is towed behind a lawn tractor and will sweep up grass clippings, leaves, or other yard debris.  You can supposedly dump it while still sitting on the seat of your tractor.  A new model retails for $420, but we got our lightly used one for $125.  Even if we end up paying a service for curbside pick-up (which appears to cost $45-65.  Our county discontinued free leaf pick-up the year we moved out of the city, of course.), I'll consider it money well spent.