At this time of year the seemingly never ending battle with fallen leaves begins. But they are the bane of the neighbourhood, those noisy leaf blowers that have been introduced to the battle of the leaves—perhaps the worst invention of garden implements ever introduced to would be gardeners. There are significant levels of leaf blower wind power and consequently the leaf blower brigade vie with each other as to who can create the highest decibel level and the greatest blowing torrents. The louder the noise, the higher the level of dominance in the neighbourhood.
There has been a significant increase in the type, shape and size of these ear-splitting noise machines. What started out as a noisy little fan motor on the end of a tube has progressed to the size of an outboard motor strapped to the back of the operator. If these machines get any more powerful, they will blow a tree away with roots, branches and leaves intact. A neighbour next door attacks each leaf as if there was a poisonous reptile hiding underneath. Rumour has it that she may have been trained as a flame thrower while serving in the army.
Some people are really attached to their leaf blowers and gear up early every day before daybreak to resume the attack to have the cleanest leafless lawn in the neighbourhood. To heck with the neighbours still in their beds as leaf warfare is a real priority to those who threw away their lawn rakes and armed themselves with leaf blowers. Remember how real soldiers used to say “charge,”well, to the leaf brigade it means their leaf blower batteries have been charged overnight and ready to resume the battle of the leaves.
Some of the leaf warfare soldiers will not quit until the lawn is as free of debris as a putting green. Nary a leaf clutches a blade of grass. Yet others of the blower fraternity are a little more slovenly and blow the mass of leaves onto the roadway. Their rationale? The tree is on the municipality’s property so civic employees should pick up any debris that originates on their land.
The leaf brigade has another annoying habit and that is twitching the trigger finger on the throttle of the machine so the intermittent noise level goes up and down like a broken pipe organ. These wayfarers are fully equipped with noise suppressing earphones, baseball caps, dust masks, eye protection and fly fishing hip boots.
Now comes the task of stuffing the leaves into those familiar brown paper garden refuse bags. Another aspect of the leaf blowing battle is who can neatly stack the most leaf bags at the end of the drive come collection day. All the while when these garden warriors are packing those leaf casualties, they do so as those nasty trees over their shoulders are devilishly shedding more leaves with great delight. Without a doubt, the leaf brigade will earnestly resume the battle the next morning with even greater ebullience.
I have to cut this article short now because I need to get to Canadian Tire to buy more leaf bags.
