she's a lawn sweeper, 80's beeper, finder's keeper don't you mess around with her

Waiting at the bus stop one morning I saw a woman across the street sweeping her walk in her dressing gown, except after she'd swept the walk she proceeded to sweep the lawn as well. And then she kept bending over and picking stuff up off her lawn -presumably leaves. Why would anyone be up at 6:55 to sweep their lawn?

I saw her again last week, only this time it was lighter out and I saw that while she did indeed sweep her walk, behind her garage and out of sight she switched to a rake instead of a broom to tidy her lawn. So much for my sweeping theory. Her yard is meticulous, but I cannot understand why she does it. There's a distinct line where her yard ends and her neighbor's begins; her neighbor's yard is covered with leaves and there's a tree above it full of even more leaves waiting to fall. The crazy-early-leaf-picker-upper-woman's tree has no leaves on it. Did she get tired of waiting for the leaves to fall and use moon boots to strip them off the top of her tree?

I also looked down at the ditch next to where I wait for the bus and thought I saw a human finger, fairly pale but with a bloody stump and ridges where knuckles would be. Closer inspection revealed that it was a carrot.