This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.

Alicia Ramsey was outside her home doing yard work when she noticed something in the fallen leaves: the chrysalis of a butterfly.

Ramsey, who’s a watershed ecologist with the San Antonio Water Authority in Texas, said it felt like a rare moment, but fallen leaves are teeming with animals that depend on them.

“We just don't realize what's in our leaves,” Ramsey said. “People throw out their leaves, or they compost their leaves, or they mulch their leaves, not realizing how much life is actually in them.”

While it feels like common practice to rake leaves and remove them from lawns, there’s a

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