Blowing Leaves

 This time of year we blow leaves once a week.  At first it starts with our weekly mowing.  We blow leaves from the edges out into the grass, and the mowers mulch them up.  For the past two weeks, the grass has not really needed to be mowed.  But we still have leaves, so rather than put more wear and tear on the mowers and lawns, we switch to blowing the leaves off the lawns and driveway into the woods that border all sides of our properties. 

We are blowing leaves in the morning with the next door neighbor.  The main leaf problem comes from the oak trees in their front lawn.  If we don't help him deal with them, they will be over on our property.  Tuit Suite.  So we all have the big back pack leaf blowers.  We have a routine that covers both properties.  Just in case he gets out there ahead of me in the morning, I wanted to document the sort of leaves we are dealing with.  Many people might think in terms of one or more lawn trees.  Sort of like this apple tree.  This amount of leaves would be pretty simple to deal with.  But it's not actually like that.  

Nope.  It's not like that at all.  It's like this.

And this....

And their front lawn and driveway...

And our driveway....

And the dry creek bed....

A lot of the leaves fall at the feet of the oak trees.  

But if you don't deal with them, the north west wind will blow them over here...

So they have to be rounded up and either chopped with the lawn mower to make them less blowy, or loaded up with the tractor and taken to the back woods.

There are a lot fewer in my garden this year since we removed the border trees.

But the fire pit maple puts a lot in the river bed.

She's almost done.  Maybe tomorrow will be the last of it.

I did mention the leaves last year, but they were really just up against the fence that day and not scattered all over like today.  It can get a little overwhelming.  This will take us a little over an hour.  We won't try to get every last leaf, but we will get most of them.  You have to do a little at a time or they simply won't move.  Maybe I will remember to get a picture tomorrow when we are knee deep in leaf piles.  It's impressive.