Jim Lewis wrote:

Of course you _should_ be mixing your leaves and grass clippings
and putting them in a compost pile, or at least using them as a
nice, heavy mulch under those trees.

Grass clippings get mulched back into the lawn. The leaves are moved to
the vegetable garden. The shreaded leaves are tilled into the soil this
fall, and in the spring I test (among other things) the nitrogen level
(along with visual inspection) to make sure they have incorporated well.

Gas-powered blowers add to air pollution, create noise pollution,
move debris from your yard to someone else's, and increase our
trade deficit in a couple of ways -- by making us buy more
foreign oil, and by buying equipment which was at least in part
manufactured out of the country.

Raking leaves is excellent aerobic exercise and by doing so you
need to spend fewer non-productive hours in the health club on
exercise machines.

When I rake, I use a big rake, and a large tarp. Dragging the loaded
tarp through the gate and to the backyard is more of a workout than the
raking itself. As long as you're not trying to get every little leaf
fragment, raking is no big deal.

--
Warren H.

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Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
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