Ah, Autumn
Posted on | October 16, 2008 at 6:22 am | 4 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: Somehow, the option requiring people to log in to post comments got turned on, and I don’t know how. I have my suspicions though. It wasn’t intentional. I’ve turned that off, so everyone should be able to post comments again. Sorry about that. Please let me know if it happens again.
A Related Pet Peeve of the Day: The website seems to be having problems again, right on schedule. Please let me know if you have trouble accessing this site.
Bonus Pet Peeve of the Day: Leaves. So beautiful but oh so deadly. Yes, I’m sure I’ve complained about them before, so this is my annual rant. I actually love Fall and it’s my favorite season. The only thing I don’t like it about is those damn leaves in my yard. When I first had this house built and moved into it, I had no idea that the ash tree they were planting in the front yard would grow so frickin’ huge and take up the whole thing. I was so naive. I didn’t think it would be any big deal to rake leaves. Growing up, we lived in a townhouse and paid maintenance fees so that other people did the yardwork. That was a good thing.
At this point the tree is about half empty:
I prefer to wait until all the leaves have dropped before raking any of them, but sometimes that’s not practical and I have to do it over consecutive weekends. And then I usually have to wait a couple of weeks after that to rake the backyard, since the leaves from the Honeylocust Shademaster 2000 there drop a lot later than the ones from the ash tree. I also have to factor in the leaves from trees in my neighbors’ yards. So basically I spend three or four weekends raking leaves.
Yesterday I had my sprinkler system winterized (i.e. blown out), since it’s about time for the lawn to hibernate for the winter. It’s a good time to do it, since we’re just starting to get into the night frosts. And it doesn’t do much good to water the lawn when it’s covered with leaves (see pic above).
I’m still waiting for someone to invent self-destructing leaves. But until then, I’ll just count on throwing out my back every year during my favorite season.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 39°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “We Are The Pipettes” (The Pipettes)
- “If You Love A Woman” (Dirty Pretty Things)
- “Play For Keeps” (Velvet Crush)
- “Your Charms” (Cinerama)
- “Firewalker” (Liz Phair)
- “Zmeyka” (Ladytron)
- “Carbon Dioxide” (Big In Japan)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “threw my life away on believing in god”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: PoR (DS)
Comments
4 Responses to “Ah, Autumn”
October 16th, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Here in Nashville, no one, rich or poor, rakes their leaves more than once a year. When I was growing up in WV, no one, rich or poor, would have thought that was ok, and anyone who did it would have been regarded as “sorry” and “trashy.” It was one of my moments of Nashville culture shock, like “Coke” being the word for “soft drink” and “sack” for “plastic or paper bag from a store.”
October 16th, 2008 @ 10:29 am
Ok, I don’t understand. Why is it trashy to rake more than once a year? And consecutive weekends doesn’t count as once a year?
Surely there will always be some strays a couple of weeks later that one has to get rid of…
October 16th, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
Pet Peeve of the Comments: A whole post with only pet peeves – c’mon, there must be something positive about the day! Maybe it’s the birthday of somebody cool, or you local bank exploded but none of the debris landed in your lunch – something…
October 17th, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
Just wait – my ash tree has a trunk at least 3 feet in diameter, and produces about 15 large (50 gallon) garbage bags full of leaves every year. Unfortunately, I also have a crabapple tree that produces several bags of it’s own refuse every year. My ash always drops it’s leaves very quickly though. One day it’s in full fall color (a rare tree in CO that doesn’t just turn yell0w) then within a couple of days every leaf on drops.
I discovered it was well worth it to pay someone $300-$400 for a fall cleanup. I’d come home one day and find the whole yard power raked and the gutters cleaned out. Worth every penny.