Wildlife Federation says don't rake your leaves

With those beautiful autumn trees come falling leaves, but instead of grumbling about having to rake them up, how about you just ... don't?

The National Wildlife Federation is actually encouraging raking laziness -- saying the leaves can benefit your garden and wildlife.

The blog post says the leaf layer is like its own ecosystem. One critter that depends on such a leaf layer is the chipmunk. Um, cute much?

Sit back, relax and stare at beautiful fall foliage:

And if you're raking up your leaves, you are also raking up butterfly and moth pupae. Don't you want butterflies in your garden?

The post also mentions leaves make a great natural mulch and help suppress weeds.

If you do insist on keeping your yard cleaned up, the NWF recommends doing it the old-fashioned way, because leaf blowers pollute the air.

We honestly didn't need these reasons to avoid tidying up the leaves in our yards, but hey, now we can say we're doing it for the environment.