Why fall sucks

Ah the joys of home ownership...and no not townhome or condo ownership but HOME ownership. One of the reasons we fell in love with our new house was the big ass backyard - we got a total of 1/2 acre which around here is kinda of a big deal. We thought it was just great, the dogs can run free around the backyard, the front is quite lovely with a birdbath and a small holly tree - blah blah. 2 weeks ago Jason and his brother-in-law Steve came riding over from his dad's house on mowers and took about 2 hours and got all the leaves together, put them in a small pile and were done with it.
Well this weekend we tackled the leaves about 11AM and didn't finish until 6ish...DEATH
It started badly with some guy that our neighbor hired to do his lawn (brilliant idea in retrospect) who decided to lecture Jason and I on our lawn mowers, leaf blowers, etc. all things that we don't even OWN but are borrowing, along with how we were piling our leaves by the side of the street. By about his 3rd interruption on my mowing efforts I finally looked at him and yelled "WHAT, WHAT NOW?" I don't think he got the point because he came over with his big, fancy stuff and did half our yard for us. Wow. I couldn't believe he wasn't the least bit offended by me and my attitude. I think he got me back a bit though - he came by and literally showered me with leaves shooting out from his giant John Deere thingy.
But the backyard is a different story. The back has 3 times the BIG ASS trees as the front, a ton of exposed roots and piles of dog shit that have been covered by inches of leaves.
By this time after Jason lectured me on being on the lookout for such roots he hit a big one with his dads mower so bad that he broke it beyond repair. Oops.
Long story short - I ran over so much dog shit it was stuck to 3 wheels and turning over and over sent a fresh wave of stench towards my nose. Then my mower ran out of gas and the cap was turned on so tightly even Jason couldn't get it loose. It took us FOREVER and we didn't even finish. We left a big pile in the back and 1 in the driveway...after being forced to rake and manually drag a tarp covered with pounds of leaves to the front yard.
UGH - paying someone $1,000 for this would SO be worth it...my back, arms and entire body are so sore and stiff it's not even funny.
LEAVES ARE THE WORST and being the eco-friendly person that I am I am very upset that I had dreams of burning down my entire backyard forest but good god it is tempting.