December 5, 2017 – Who is that raking leaves?

  

       I enjoy raking leaves. Others blow them, or chop them up with the lawn mower and disperse them.  Me, I have a few locations where I just have to rake in order for the fauna below the fallen leaves does not die off or it simply looks better.  The maple tree down near the street on the front lawn – I do that so that it looks better.  The maple tree on the front walk – I do that to clean up the front walkway and flowerbeds.  The Ginkgo tree on the back lawn I have to get the leaves up or they mat and kill the grass. The biggest raking area is my allée. The rest of the 40+ trees on my property, I let nature run its course.

         Raking leaves of the Bradford pears allée which connects to the crepe myrtles and the river birch allée, I enjoy the most because it gives my property instant “street appeal”.

         Saturday I raked from the river birches through to the end of the Bradford pear allée at the street side and made a long ridge of fallen leaves.  The leaves of the Bradford pears are leathery and they take more than a year to decompose – so I must rake them up and move them to a leaf pile.  The crepe myrtle area has many small downed limbs and I neaten it up.  

        However, the river birches have the best fallen leaves. They get dry and crispy quickly and I raked them into a ridge between the trees.  In the next few weeks I will take my ½ inch wire screen to that area and rub the fallen birch leaves through it to make leaf mulch. I will leave most at the base of the trees and then take some for special flower bulb planting.

         I did the raking on Saturday and left most of the removal until Sunday afternoon when the temperature warmed up a bit.

         Working alone and due to the volume of leaves, I pulled out my 16’ x 20’ tarp and laid it alongside the pile.  I plunked down two 4-foot pieces of wood to keep it flat on the ground on one side and raked on a mound of leaves in a sweeping motion. Then I removed the wood, folded the tarp in a certain way and dragged it to the leaf pile down back for unloading.

Well, getting the darn tarp flat again was a chore until I decided to pull it back up the hill as if it were my cape – my Super Woman’s Cape.  As I walked briskly with my hands grasp on the outside edges of one side of the tarp over my shoulders, it floated out and flattened out in midair.  Then I would walk to where I needed the tarp next, slow down and let it drop off my shoulders to the ground at my heels.  It came out flat just about every time.

I bet my neighbors, if any happened to peer out their windows, thought I was an insane woman walking around with a silver tarp over my shoulders looking like SUPER WOMAN.

It worked for me and got the job done quickly.