Blow me.

There is this really interesting thing which happens each fall in the ’burbs; the leaves turn as the weather gets cold and suddenly the neighborhood is abuzz with the clarion call of the leaf blower.

This year, I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the EYOC drama still unfolding. In years past, I would have to listen to the sporadic nagging about the shape of the yard and the threats by the EYOC to do something about it - visions of elder cruelty immediately sprung to mind, or contrasting that, a clear picture of a prone, over exerted senior who had succumbed to coronary thrombosis.

Life has been a lot quieter lately so, I let the leaves just fall waiting for that moment when the trees around the house had shot their wad and stood bare skeletons in contrast to their summer glory.

We hadn’t quite reached that point yet and weekend before last I went out and did one side of the house and the front yard. This past Monday I spent pretty much the entire day doing the back yard and the other side as well as giving a second going over to the areas I had already addressed.

This year though, I opted for “old school” leaf removal.

I just got out the big fan rake and slowly set about making the yard a kinder, gentler place. Saturday before last the temperature was practically balmy and when I was up really early I couldn’t bring myself to ruin the nice touch the day had by getting out the shoulder strapped machine and cutting the beautiful calm with the high pitched, incessant whine of the blower.

Thing is, it took just about the same time it would’ve taken with the blower. It was a bit of exercise (something I could sorely do with) but, there was something quite nice about it (using the rake). Monday, even though the skies were overcast for the most part, the weather was temperate and the rather large pile of leaves which resulted from my efforts took on a different and more satisfying feel for having used the rake.

Both days I was out there though, at some point while raking, I heard the drone start up and cringed.

I thought about all those times I had used the blower myself and how I would be forced to just crank up the thing again and again to try and move some small, troublesome leaf which was lodged in its place - so much waste for such little reward.

Thinking back, I can remember a time when you’d just rake all the leaves into a pile and set them to a smoldering blaze - there was something so very charming about that smell, the burning leaves. It was a fall smell, a smell you’d only whiff during one particular moment during the course of the year, something which let you know where you were in the calendar, it was nice and warm and always it contrasted with the light bite of cold in the air as winter got closer...

They’ve stopped people from burning leaves these days because of pollution. It seems all those burning leaves were just horrible for the air quality and they just mucked up the atmosphere something fierce so, that wonderful smell is a rarity now. Funny thing is though, everyone has one of those damn leaf blowers and most of them run on gas and spit out the most horrendous fumes - nice mixture of gas and oil which runs the things will do that - put out malodorous fumes that is. So, instead of the smell of burning leaves, we’ve got leaf blowers and lots of smelly gas/oil fumes when fall rolls around.

Yep, got to love progress sometimes - two steps forward, one step back.