Fall Raking Plan

Every morning as I drink my coffee I assess the amount of fallen leaves in our yard. This year my town will be collecting bagged leaves at the curbside three times in November—compared to last year when everyone had to take their own leaves to the town compost heap. This was exciting news, as we made many, many trips last year in our compact car. (At least it's a hatch-back.)Our plentitude of leaves is ironic because we have just two trees on our property, both in the front yard. One is a huge old oak and the other, a saucer magnolia. Our back yard is small and treeless, but lots of branches from our neighbors' trees hang over the fence and bestow us with their leaves in the fall.

So, we'll very much enjoy the luxury of curbside pickup of our dozens of leaf bags this year. On the other hand, the pressure is on to get everything raked and bagged in time, and the leaves seem to be really clinging to the trees. I'm debating, should I chip away at the leaves as they fall, or wait till they're mostly all down and do one big cleanup? What's your strategy?