The Leaf Wars

Hopefully The Leaf Wars will soon be over. They have been late in falling this year in our area as we had extended warm weather and then so much rain. It seems the trees just didn't know what to to with their leaves. The last few days we've had some high winds and I'm hoping they'll all just fall off. My husband employs various methods as he goes to battle to try to get a handle on them. I'm tired of hearing the "Nnnnnnnnnnnn" drone of the leaf blower and the ride on lawn mower with grass and leaf catcher as he attemps to corral them. He also has a backpack blower in addition to the handheld and push blower. There's also something called a "Billy Goat" which I guess is the outdoor version of a indoor vacuum. He actually used it a couple of times before we had the grass catcher to vacuum up clippings when the lawn had gotten too high and it wasn't all mulched by the mower. Cracked me up! Out there vacuuming the lawn.
Being that our house is on a major road we don't have the luxury of just blowing them to the curb and waiting for the Township to come with the big vacuum truck to come and take them away like others in the neighborhood. Also because of how we are situated, there are some people across the road that will blow their leaves just to the edge of the lawn and wait for the winds to carry them down the road, which can often mean they end up by us!
Oh, how I miss the days of my childhood when you'd rake them in a pile and jump in them. Back then you were allowed to burn them and I kind of miss that smell and the popping of acorns. It meant that fall was here and winter was around the corner.

Copyright © 2005 Deborah Sharp Loeb