Autumn Leaves

As I sit here at the keyboard, trying to come up with something to write about this week, I looked away from the screen and noticed brilliant deep orange, yellow and green leaves.  The trees in the back yards of America are at this very moment blanketed the yard with leaves by Mother Nature.  This is one of the best times of the year.

Mother Nature in all her brilliance is putting on a show for us.  It is time for many people to get out the rakes and blower and address the leaves that are falling onto many of our lawns.  When I was younger the wife would talk me into raking the leaves.  I had a lot more energy then and went upon my appointed task with the determination of a brainwashed new Military Recruit.  As years went by I made chances to make the task a little easier.   When I put in a new driveway, I had them take out the hedges on both sides of the property, putting up a 6 foot Cedar Fence.  This helped in 2 ways, it no longer meant that I had to get leaves out from under the hedges, and also it got rid of the poison ivy that ambushed anyone who came near the hedges.  We actually don’t have any trees growing in our yard, so the leaves that collected belonged to someone else.   Do you know I used to pressure wash that fence, about every year, and it would turn bright and new.

My old neighbor and I were friends for 25 years, and then he moved away.  The wife of the new neighbor that moved in once told me the fence was ugly and wanted to paint her side green.  I pointed out to her that it was my fence on my property, and if she did paint it, she would be building me a new fence shortly after her green paint dried.  Her husband and I discussed her misconception of property rights and the fence painting was never again mentioned.   I also never again pressure washed the fence and let it go to a deeper weathered look.  You know the look that she thought was oh so ugly.  Surprisingly, they never built a fence on their side, but they do stack wood for their wood burning stove next to my ugly fence.  It now leans a bit.

About 6 years ago, I bought a blower that could also suck up leaves and mulch it into a bag that hung from my shoulder.   I believe I used it twice.  Now, I just use the mulching mower and turn them into fertilizer for the lawn.  It now takes me probably less than 30 minutes to do the front lawn, not the 2 days it used to take way back when.

Did I mention that we are getting requests for units to store vehicles through the snowy winter?  Some of our units, in particular the larger ones that have drive up access are favorites of renters.  They are used to hold Lawn Furniture, lawn tools and equipment.   They also hold the bigger toys, like boats, wave runners and motor cycles.

Be careful doing your raking, don’t strain your back.