The dreaded Leaf Blowers are nigh.
March 11, 2012
While the first leaves are yet to hit the asphalt, I know that soon the leaf-blower brigade will come out. It’s inevitable and I am not sure we should just move out, take out a lease on a Balinese villa and possibly avoid murder. If you own a leaf blower, forget getting an invitation to my house. You didn’t take the hint last year, did you? I left a rake on your doorstep, all wrapped in cellophane with a red ribbon. What more does it take, what more could I have done?
Years ago, when things were still quiet and Autumnal habits heralded themselves with the rain of golden leaves and suburbia in deep slumber, with its first wood-fire smoke curling upwards from gentle chimneys, one might just have heard the early wakening of a neighbor with the soothing swish of the broom or a rustling rake. Sometimes, the leaves would give us a reminder of seasons changing when raked together and burnt giving a lovely smoky scent. The scent of autumn.
Not anymore now though, autumns have been taken over by those giant Husqvarna leaf blowers. Noise is now an essential part of gardening, especially in autumn. What makes so many feel that unless something makes noise, it’s not serious? What’s welling up in those previously peaceful suburbanites that make them go out at 6am and start war?
Sure, in the past and during summer, lawns needed mowing and dad did it with the Victa. Victa was our national identity; we came close to saluting it. God save our Victa…But, at least with those early mowers there was a fair chance the motor would just have a bad day, refuse to start and dad would then, after pulling the cord with blind fury 223 times, give it back to the shed next to the FJ Holden. Peace and quiet would remain rock solid.
Now, the spark and ignition have advanced so much that failure of motorized garden equipments are on par with winning the 100 million in the Spanish lottery. One pull and they start relentlessly and without failure.
When the man next door dons his floppy hat and visors, we know we will be in for a hell of a time. He is normally a very peace loving man and solicitor. With the leaf blower strapped around his torso he metamorphoses into a man on a murderous mission. He almost risks being invited to the Taliban. Where does this sudden military move to noisy gardening come from?
Does it go back to childhood, a dysfunctional grandmother with a penchant for taking off her belt, or a sadistic dad swishing a bicycle chain? Why the hatred towards leaves? What makes it so much more incomprehensible is that our neighbor has John Steinbeck’s “Of men and Mice” on his bookshelves. How can one possibly correlate that level of literary appreciation with going out guerilla like with a leaf blower strapped on?
On top of his love of gardening noise he also climbs a ladder and peers inside his guttering. Not only are leaves banned on the ground, they are also not allowed to settle peacefully onto his roof. He would sleep on his roof, given half a chance. His wife looks on anxiously when he travels along the entire guttering of his house. The leaf blower is on full throttle. He hates leaves.
It makes one wonder about the differences of culture. Bali has more trees and leaves than the entire Southern hemisphere put together. You lose a matchstick and next day it has sprouted into a young sapling. Yet, there is not a leaf blower to be seen or heard anywhere. The brush or rice stalk brooms are out and each morning just a gentle sweep of the footpath or entrance and all is clean. The leaves are left to rot and nourish the good earth. Of course, not a zinc alume gutter anywhere either. It’s all left to nature. The rain is allowed to water the plants and trees, instead of being channeled towards the ocean
Mind you here in Australia, the Bunning forces are flat tack promoting noise as much as possible. Driving by at night and on a large well lit board we are put on notice there will be D.I.Y information for ladies each Friday. I shudder at the prospect of what motorized garden utensil will arrive next door. Soon, the gender equality will be not only seen but heard as well. Strong women will join the blower’s male dominated army, wield those leaf blowers and noise will double.
Where did it all go so wrong?
Tags: Gardens, John Steinbeck, Leaf blower, Of Men and Mice.Taliban Posted in Gerard Oosterman | Edit | 2 Comments
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Times are changing and the latest commercial grade electric leaf blowers (Pellenc) are greener quieter and if used by an environmentally minded operator ,used in conjunction with a rake, broom and bins to collect/ redistribute foliage as mulch and rubbish to bins, they can actual be beneficial to the environment.
Yes using a leaf blower on soft surfaces is a waste of time! Obviously a rake would be the tool of choice.
Electric leaf blowers can be used to redistribute fallen vegetation into piles, to be collected/composted. They can cover large areas in minimal time. This saved time allows the user to then clear the kerb, gutter, drains and accessible areas of roadside adjoining the property being serviced, preventing rubbish from entering our water ways enabling the user to collect /mulch vegetation that would otherwise be left to decompose in waterways causing all sorts of issues for local fauna and flora
Some may say that vegetation entering our waterways is a natural occurrence, but when you start covering large areas with hard rooftops, concrete and bitumen surfaces runoff is majorly increased causing larger amounts of rubbish and vegetation to enter drains of which lead to our waterways.
A leaf blower in the middle of a natural rainforest would of course be pointless! But unfortunately human kind have covered our earth in all sorts of hard surfaces to collect and distribute larger amounts of waste and debris directly to natural waterways. Under these circumstances tools need to be introduced that can cope with these un-natural environments and luckily now cleaner greener quieter tools are more readily available.
Of course you are still going to get idiots pointlessly blowing leaves and rubbish about but remember don’t blame the equiptment blame the user!
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Nothing like scrunching through autumn’s leaves. I do not remember anything about leaf blowers in the famous song about the autumn leaves…
The dead leaves collected with the shovel.
You see, I did not forget…
The dead leaves collected with the shovel,
The memories and the regrets also
And the wind of North carries them
In the cold night of the lapse of memory.
You see, I did not forget
The song that you sang me.
…acknowledgement of lyric…
http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2007/04/22/duke-ellington-%e2%80%9cautumn-leaves%e2%80%9d/
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Vectis Lad:
There is nothing quite like lids lit up, it lightens the day for many.
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We are encouraged to turn them off for Earth Hour.
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Gerard , i have a 8mt Australian Red Cedar Tree and every year when i hear my neighbour on his roof with a blower , i race to the shed to arm my self with a large rake and run around to my neigbour’s yard and rake up my leaves on his lawn and toss them over the fence into my garden bed. It takes me 10 minutes max to get my leaves back ( mulch ) and all is quiet on the western front.
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We had a huge spotted gum cut down and put through a most monstrous mulcher machine and now have tons of steaming rotting mulch. The trunk was cut up for firewood and taken away. We, all of us in our body corporate, can now use the mulch to our heart’s content. The tree was lovely but with another tree falling against our house not long ago and damaging the roof, there was no choice. A pity!
That’s another noisy machine, those mulchers are becoming popular. Still, with old age comes diminished hearing. A small blessing at times.
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There was a boy at school with spotted gums. The matron said that it was impetigo.
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Mrs M used to rake up autumn leaves from half way down the street and mulch the garden with them. The leaf blower brigade seem to prefer to blow them from one yard to the other.
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Gez, it’s great to know someone so prepared as you are – to be the fall guy. We can certainly leaf it to you to catch the dappled patina of the change of season and rake over the pile. Let nobody suggest that you should branch out or truncate your stories of nature; your bark is infinitely worse than your bite. 🙂 🙂
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You forgot to mention blow jobs, Emmjay ! Oh yes, so I did.
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How do you like the Friday night DIY info for ladies at Bunnings? Hope it won’t affect the meat raffle at the Pig’s Arms. Still, the ladies might all saunter in after 9pm loaded with bolt cutters or tree mulchers.
I wonder if Estee Lauder might reciprocate with Friday nights DIY lessons for the boys? Practise a bit of powder rouge here and there, a Brazillian gentle wax around the terroir of the derriere?
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I left your lids on, G.
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Driving by at night and on a large well lit board we are put on notice there will be D.I.Y information for ladies each Friday.
Driving past their stores at night, one can’t help but notice, the brightly lid adverts – proclaiming DIY classes for ladies – every Friday.
Sorry! Couldn’t resist it. I don’t know what came over me 😉
I hate leaf movers, BTW.
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Ha, ha lol. Glad you hate noisy leaf blowers. Still, it gives many people a goal in life.
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I visited the old UL story.Those were the days , my friend when we talked about things that matter…
I love you, you old Kingbast (Kingblast to me), you might be a royalist, but if you are against tinned baby carrots and leaf blowers, I do not care what you are for…
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sorry, this is not Gez but H…must be more careful in the future….
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I tried once more, now it’s me…no girl wants to look like Gez 🙂
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I agree G. Infernal machines lacking any reason for being.
When I was a lad I loved autumn with its leaves, sometimes raked into piles in the gutter and set damply alight to smoke up the overcast afternoons. We’d ride our bikes through the burning piles, kicking barely inflamed leaves about. I loved the smoky smell.
I also remember this from the days when Unleashed had some point to it. I note your response is conspicuously absent, but gee we had some fun in the old days, ay?
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/37426.html
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“Conspicuously absent” alright because I didn’t know Unleashed was even around or available. My first response to ABC Unleashed was around June or July 2008 when it was suggested by Emmjay and Gregor Stronach I should try and put words together for Unleashed.
Of course Emm was miles ahead while I was lingering in the sandpit making biscuits and blowing bubbles. I so wish the ABC would relent and/ or repent go back to the personal and the pertinent of those days. The chimneys were smoking and all was cosy and much more relevant.
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Some great lines there Waz, I liked the one with you and I quoting “Apocalypse Now”. Back in the days when they’d publish anything.
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You’re right, Gerard, the pensioners friend will be out in full force fairly soon, the noise starting at dawn and finishing at sunset. Must be the most useless thing ever invented, pushing leaves from one splot to the other.
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Worst invention ever. Blow it from one spot to another – what is the point. Let the leaves mulch – mow them too. But Gerard you have forgotten leaves in gutters which lead to tanks – you do have to clean the gutters, twice a year usually. Apart from that, nice piece as usual.
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We used to get the leaves ending up from gutters into our water tanks, much to the advantage of our health. All drinking water used to run along river beds and pick up all sorts of things including essential minerals.
Water tanks on farms might get pure rain water from roofs, but without the minerals, hence, the disproportionate incidence of a high percentage of people suffering from thyroid problems coming mainly from rural areas.
Of course, getting dead rats or possum skeletons ending up in rain water tanks is something else. We emptied out our 40 000 litre rain water tank on the farm and there was a wombat skull at the bottom of it. The mind boggles.
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I’m with you on this one, Gerard, the accursed noise of leaf blowers and for what? only to blow leaves into the gutter or elsewhere so that they can soon blow back again. To me it has a King Canute quality: impossible. But for all the noise it’s far less benign.
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Yes, there is an almost ‘join the mob’ mentality about so much of what happens in our suburbs. No one wants to be seen ‘outside’ the norm. The result, an ‘en masse’ line up at Bunnings, buying noise and mayhem equipment, in order not to be seen anti social..
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