...that if I'm trying to snatch a few moments sleep in the afternoon and I hear someone using a lawnmower I relax and imagine Sunday afternoons and pleasant cut grass smells but if I hear someone using a leaf blower I want to fling up the window and scream like a banshee:
'TRY USING A FUCKING BROOM'
Maybe it's Narnia
11 months ago
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13 comments:
i don't think that's odd at all
Me too! I love the lawnmower, hate the leaf blower. My theory is that this is because my father used a lawnmower regularly during my childhood nap time but always used a rake on the leaves. Sigh....
Leaf blowers are stupid.
Leaves are just going to keep falling.
What's wrong with leaves ?
not a thing in the world !
Argh! Leafblowers drive me insane. I only see/hear them at work (I'm in the UK, people don't seem to use them much here) but it strikes me as so stupid the way these guys stand around blowing leaves into piles on windy days, or blowing them out the front gate when they'll just blow back in again. Waste of time. And the noise is horrendous, even 2 stories up through a closed window.
Now, a leafsucker, that makes more sense. But only if it was silent and solar-powered and the leaves were then composted.
p.s. Hi. I've been lurking and enjoying your blog for ages.
It is so beautiful how you express your love to your child! I love coming to your blog to read it. Tricky is so cute!
My neigbour (old man in 50's), without fail, every Monday morning, and sometimes as a surprise on Wednesday mornings, enjoys a good three hour hammering (literally using a hammer, hammering something hard and chronic in his frontyard). I live directly opposite him, he starts this routine at exactly 7:30am, and I really, nearly want to kill him.
No - my dear - you are not odd.
I hear your frustration! Our apartment block has a backyard the size of a postage stamp and still the gardeners come with whipper-snippers and leaf blowers. My husband loves to dine out on how he caught me yelling "shut the fuck up" out the window at them. Not that they could hear me - they were wearing ear muffs! But yeah, leafblowers... stupidest most annoying invention ever.
Jack xx
Ooh bugger.
Think I’m going to have to ‘fess up here. I too own a leaf-blower – and damn it all to hell – I love it.
The thing is, a leaf-blower is just stupid - but they work both ways, and a leaf-sucker is brilliant. You use the blower to get the little buggers in a pile, then suck them up all in one go. The whirly little blade mulches the leaves making them perfect for composting (although I throw mine straight in the bin. Not exactly covering myself in glory here, am I).
It is possible that – apparently being the only man commenting on this blog - I am dealing with a hostile audience, but anyone who has had to rake leaves and struggle with picking them up and stuffing them into rubbish bags will agree that leaf-blowers are the mongrel’s dangly bits.
Of course leaf-blowers are like jet skis – when you’re using one they’re the coolest things ever, but everybody else with one is a twat.
I use my leaf blower to get the leaves out of the flower beds. It causes less damage than throwing my rake over the poor little blossoms, and I don't risk tearing up the vines of my ground cover out of the ground the way I do with my rake.
Once the leaves are out of the delicate areas, I resort to my rake. I love raking my yard on sunny autumn Sunday mornings. I like the crunch and crackle of the dried leaves, and the feel of the itchy chill of the cold breeze on my face.
What I love most about my leaf blower is irritating my Jesus-Freak next door neighbors. These are the people who prefer I not play rock music while working in my garden because they don't want their precious Jesus-Freak children exposed to the devil's music. Sometimes, when I'm done cleaning out the flower beds, I stand as close as possible to the property line and I turn the blower on high just to let the noise go for a little while.
I might go to hell -- but it won't be because of my taste in music.
About 10 years ago a law was passed in L.A. It stated that all leaf blowers had to be fitted with mufflers. It helps.
There's no way I could tell our gardener not to use a leaf blower when he's here. I figure it's used for about a half hour a week, by him. Otherwise, we're just buried under the everyday, every season, leaf fall that just happens in S. California.
I totally hate leaf blowers for the reasons Anne stated. Except in Spanglish's case. That's totally acceptable. ;)
The thing is, leaves are really great just left all alone on the grass and in the gardens. They just compost away and enrich the lawns and soil.
And I'm not much of a fan of noisy lawnmowers (we have one of those push jobbies that never does a very good job but only makes a slight whooosh whoosh sound as it bends the grass) either. But as soon as you mentioned it, I totally thought of lazy Sunday afternoons. I think I like noisy lawnmowers when they're a few yards (as in lawns, plots, etc. not measuring sticks) away.
A while back I posted about how much I enjoyed hearing sirens through an open window against a background of rustling leaves while I was lying down with Swee'pea for a nap.
A banshee! Funny!
Any noise while you are trying to nap is a nerve wracker.
That's why an undisturbed nap is better than sex.
..or Toblerone.
See, I just knew this would polarise people. Because that's the Evil Power of the Leaf Blower. They SEDUCE you into thinking they're all caring about your delicate flowers and your poor sore muscles straining over a rake. But they don't care. The Leaf Blower is just biding its time, building up its legion of human followers. One day the call will come, my garden loving friends and you who think you are the Boss Of The Leaf Blower will realise exactly who is paying the piper and who now must dance to his nasty Loud and Peace-shattering tune.
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