Current mood: 
aggravated
Throw on a sweater and go for a walk. Take in that refreshing cool air. Rustle your feet through the gathering piles of leaves.
Leaves!! I love leaves! I love raking piles of leaves together and then going FWAAAA!! and leap into them. With the kids! Without the kids! Still!
But hey, what's that sound?
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What I can do without is all the leaf blowers. Especially the gas-powered ones, which sound like miniature chain saws, which in fact they pretty much are. The sound of those things carries a half mile. On a crisp autumn day here in the 'burbs, I can sometimes hear five of them at a time. Even one nearby is enough to wake me from a nap.
What happened to rakes? Why is it that if some "labor saving device" gets put on the market, that everyone has to go out and buy one? Of course, they're all Made In China, too, but that's a rant for another day.
Is it any wonder that we are a nation of overfed fools who can't run one mile or walk three if our lives depended on it? Is it any wonder why we have such a demand for petroleum? Not that the leaf blowers use that much, but they use any, and make an infernal racket doing so.
Here's how I take care of my leaves: I take the old sheets that I last used two weeks ago to cover the tomato plants. With a couple of people's help, I spread them out over parts of the yard. I rake leaves onto one. Someone else (occasionally it's me alone) folds up the four corners of the sheet, picks it up (maybe 20 pounds), and carries it either to the big pile in the yard to have fun with, or to the side of the street for the vacuum truck to come along and take them all away. Repeat.
Take a hint: Lose the stupid blowers, get a rake, and then get some exercise. Maybe have fun, too!
2 comments:
Reposting this rant in June rather than October, so maybe the more apt analogy for the season is gasoline powered hedge clippers, maybe even lawn mowers.
I confess I do not relish raking leaves. I do not have assistance with leaf removal, so I rake and use a combination electric leaf mulcher/shredder/vacuum. The city tells residents not to rake leaves into the street, as it can clog the sewers, so we must bag or compost leaves. I try to wait until all of the leaves have fallen, rake them into piles, and use the vacuum/mulcher to shred them into a format that I can use to protect my perennials. I'd say I use mine for two hours, maybe four days a year tops.
I am a normally a gadget type gal, but I use manual tools more than powered tools. I do a lot of yard work on a whim. I lose momentum if I have to get the tool, an extension cord (or two) and plug into a power source. If I have the time and inclination to do something, it is a lot easier for me to grab a manual tool and just do it. Many times, I can finish the task in the time it would have taken to collect the items needed for the power tools!
Power tools make little tasks seem like big productions. Perhaps that is the point of some poorly designed tools. When someone is leaf blowing, they aren't doing anything at all. Think about it - the leaves are going to blow back to where they were. It isn't an efficient use of energy at all.
As for summer tools, if someone has to use powered hedge clippers every week, then they need to revisit their landscape choices. Replacing fast growing bushes with slow growing, low maintenance plants would be easier and cheaper in the long run.
Gas mowers, on the other hand, may be as much of an American institution as cars. People accept them as a necessity until they realize there is a viable alternative or the operation costs are too high.
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