Historically, I've loathed raking, even in the postage stamp sized yard we have. We have a large maple tree the dominates the backyard and drops almost a literal shit ton of leaves. Last year, I left piles of leaves around the periphery of the garage with a couple bags worth inside the garage and called it done. The leaves were still frozen to the ground at the end of May when I finally pulled them loose.
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| I'll have the best manicured dirt patch in all of St. Paul |
This year I was determined to do better. The weather was warm, hovering near 40 degrees, and I got an early start to the day. We only had two large brown paper bags from Ace Hardware to fill, so I used an old wicker laundry basket and Ikea bag as extras. When all four totes were full, I loaded the car and took a trip to the local compostery. The first trip was a breeze, but each subsequent one had more and more people dumping their leaves. During my trips, I would listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on MPR. I felt like I was having a typical Minnesotan Fall day.
That was the most remarkable thing that weekend. There was such a buzz of nervous energy across the neighborhood. As I raked, I could hear several leaf blowers running in various back yards. The weather forecast warned of a cold front moving in and bringing bitter cold and as much as a foot of snow in some areas. After the last winter, I think people were suffering from a certain PTSD about the Polar Vortex (maybe a new syndrome called PVSD). By my fourth trip to the compost site, I had to wait 15 minutes to get in and dump my leaves. Plus, the piles of leaves grew exponentially, leaving limited room for vehicles to negotiate around each other. I thought it best to call it a day and make one or two final trips on Sunday, after the workers had a chance to re-pile the leaves with the front loader.
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| I shudder to think how much dog poop is in there Always wear gloves, kids! |
Alas, it was not meant to be. The next day, I brought a load and found there was a line of cars the stretched down the road from the entrance and around the corner. I was half tempted to run onto the curb, put on my blinkers, and dump my leaves over the fence surrounding the compost site; but that would lead to anarchy. So, once again, I have a stack of bags in the garage and one pile next to the fence that will have to wait until Spring to be dumped. Still better than last year.
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| The last hurrah for our patio until Spring |
As for the snow, the Twin Cities area was not hit as bad as others, just a few inches. I did what I could to clear the walkways, but the cold had packed the snow into ice. I was just about to start on my driveway when my shovel broke. The next day I went to buy two more at Menard's, but not only were they almost cleared out of shovels, nearly all of their snowblowers were sold out, too. As I said, people have taken this Polar Vortex a lot more seriously. Since getting my new shovels, we've gotten three more snowfalls and its only the first week of December, not even true Winter. Looks like its going to be a tough year.
