Requires time and labor, but when we lived on our 50-acre farm in a log house surrounded by a six-acre woodland I built two large compost bins into which we dumped all the yard leaves we raked into piles. Packed the leaves down, watered them soggy, and by spring they became rich brown-black compost for our gardens. We agree with Cate Blanchett.
Just started reading your book and I'm really enjoying it. It's inspiring me to continue working on my own damaged property, although snow and rain are currently slowing me down.
FINALLY a forum to support what I have been ranting about to my friends and acquaintances for years about the leaf-blower! How it doesn't solve the problem, but merely MOVES it. The senseless pollution! The noise! The Wall-E-fication of Americans! (Don't get me started about E-Bikes). Thank you Chris, thank you Cate Blanchett for providing words of sanity and wisdom in an insane world. LET THE LEAVES BE! (Also I laughed OUT LOUD at the overtly phallic ad for the RedMax).
I'm down with Cate, for sure, though I admit to occasionally using our electric leaf blower, but 90% of the time I use it for sweeping the garage or our small patio. For the yard, I pull out the push broom, which is remarkable effective and requires less torque than a rake. I'm surprised I don't see more people doing this. Mostly, however, I just let the leaves sit. I've also got a soft spot for our leaf blower on account that years ago, when Dashiell was a young teen, we used it to build a hydrofoil platform for a science project competition. The deck could accommodate 2 youths, with a range that was limited to the length of available extension cords.
🍂🍁Somehow accidentally deleted your wonderful comment, fumbling to edit my reply on my phone! So sorry 🙏. But I love that vision from the office window, something I think we have all experienced variants of. And that’s great to hear about Charlie Jane’s latest, which is on my list ✨
I'm glad you liked it! And since I haven't yet deleted the notification, here it is again:
"When I was still working on a college campus I recall looking out the window on one of those blustery, rainy Pacific Northwest days to see one of the grounds crew wielding a leaf blower, having little more effect on the distribution of the fallen leaves and fir needles than the wind. It made me wonder what combination of job description, getting paid by the hour, and availability of other tasks for that person to do had led them to blowing leaves around in a windstorm. (It also made me question my university's sustainability mandate.) I'm currently reading Charlie Jane Anders's novel *Lessons in Magic and Disaster*, which is turning out to be a nice pairing with *A Natural History of Empty Lots*. In it, the magic practiced by the protagonist requires places that humans modified and then abandoned in order to work."
Requires time and labor, but when we lived on our 50-acre farm in a log house surrounded by a six-acre woodland I built two large compost bins into which we dumped all the yard leaves we raked into piles. Packed the leaves down, watered them soggy, and by spring they became rich brown-black compost for our gardens. We agree with Cate Blanchett.
Amazing and impressive!
I wholeheartedly endorse the hand-blistered zen of the rake!
Just started reading your book and I'm really enjoying it. It's inspiring me to continue working on my own damaged property, although snow and rain are currently slowing me down.
Thank you so much! 🙏
FINALLY a forum to support what I have been ranting about to my friends and acquaintances for years about the leaf-blower! How it doesn't solve the problem, but merely MOVES it. The senseless pollution! The noise! The Wall-E-fication of Americans! (Don't get me started about E-Bikes). Thank you Chris, thank you Cate Blanchett for providing words of sanity and wisdom in an insane world. LET THE LEAVES BE! (Also I laughed OUT LOUD at the overtly phallic ad for the RedMax).
I'm down with Cate, for sure, though I admit to occasionally using our electric leaf blower, but 90% of the time I use it for sweeping the garage or our small patio. For the yard, I pull out the push broom, which is remarkable effective and requires less torque than a rake. I'm surprised I don't see more people doing this. Mostly, however, I just let the leaves sit. I've also got a soft spot for our leaf blower on account that years ago, when Dashiell was a young teen, we used it to build a hydrofoil platform for a science project competition. The deck could accommodate 2 youths, with a range that was limited to the length of available extension cords.
Home-built hydrofoil ftw!
🍂🍁Somehow accidentally deleted your wonderful comment, fumbling to edit my reply on my phone! So sorry 🙏. But I love that vision from the office window, something I think we have all experienced variants of. And that’s great to hear about Charlie Jane’s latest, which is on my list ✨
I'm glad you liked it! And since I haven't yet deleted the notification, here it is again:
"When I was still working on a college campus I recall looking out the window on one of those blustery, rainy Pacific Northwest days to see one of the grounds crew wielding a leaf blower, having little more effect on the distribution of the fallen leaves and fir needles than the wind. It made me wonder what combination of job description, getting paid by the hour, and availability of other tasks for that person to do had led them to blowing leaves around in a windstorm. (It also made me question my university's sustainability mandate.) I'm currently reading Charlie Jane Anders's novel *Lessons in Magic and Disaster*, which is turning out to be a nice pairing with *A Natural History of Empty Lots*. In it, the magic practiced by the protagonist requires places that humans modified and then abandoned in order to work."
;)
Thank you!