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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Beauty and Work


Beauty is all around us this time of year. These little trees are called service berries. I've never heard of them until my neighbor planted 2. Now I see them everywhere. Aren't they pretty? I can see these looking out my side kitchen window.
Not sure you see really how many leaves are piled up here; but took hubby and I blowing and raking several hours on Sunday. We have leaves at the curb ready for pick up the full length of the house, on both sides of the drive. As do the 2 neighbors between us and the end of the street. Our neighborhood has a large truck vacuum that picks up the leaves about 5 times during the season. The leaves are then composted at a facility where we buy our mulch in the spring. It's my understanding our community was one of the first in the nation to develop this system. It's really a good system. They don't fill the landfills with them this way, and it's far easier than cutting up leaves yourself, and or bagging them which is what many neighboring communities do.
This is hubby's new leaf blower. He had just finished blowing all the leaves off the roof and out of the gutters when the one we've had for years broke. So, he ventured out to the hardware to make a new purchase.

Do you rake or blow your leaves?
What's your communities method of collecting the leaves?

As it's continuing to get colder and colder with each passing day, I'm reminded what a hard time of year it is for those who are homeless and less fortunate. And with that, please read about my homeless project here. I'm betting, there's something you can do to help.

14 comments:

  1. We have a rake & a leaf blower...I prefer Mother Natures leaf blower...sometimes she doesn't give a chance to do it ourselves. The leaves on our big tree have only just begun to fall, either a good rain, or wind will finish them off sadly. Such a pretty time of year but so short.....

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  2. ps...the service berry tree, lovely...does it have berries? Where does it get it's name? very
    pretty view out your kitchen window...I see brick
    old brick on the house next door :(

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  3. Mother nature's blower is what causes us to have to rake and blow Faith. We've had several hard days of wind and rain, so they've come down faster than normal, and earlier than normal this year. Gotta get them off the grass or it kills the grass, smothers it.
    Sandy

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  4. Not sure how the tree's got that name, will have to ask my neighbor. She's very knowledgeable about such things. I do think there are berries that the birds eat.

    Sandy

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  5. I no longer have to rake but I used to enjoy it very much. Sounds like your community is ahead of the pack when it comes to "green".

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  6. HI SANDY,
    NOW THAT I REACHED 70 YRS. OLD LAST MONTH I NO LONGER RAKE LEAVES. I AM PRETTY LUCKY, I LIVE WITH MY DAUGHTER,AND HER FAMILY AND THERE ARE OAK TREES ALL AROUND US, A VERY WOODED AREA. MY SON-IN-LAW HAS A LEAF BLOWER, AND WE HAVE PICK-UP FOR THE LEAVES. NOT TO MUCH TO DO EXCEPT SIT BACK AND ENJOY ALL THE BEAUTIFUL COLORS OF THE LEAVES, AND THE SMELL OF AUTUMN. YOU HAVE A GREAT WEEK, AND THANKS FOR STOPPING BY GIFTS FROM THE SEA, TAKE CARE.......RIZZI

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  7. Hi Sandy,

    I wanted to let you know that Homespun Helpers is going to have a "pet" project next year rather than monthly pet projects. You can still do whatever you want, but for this one, we'll send all of the items around the holidays to see what an impact Homespun Helpers can make.

    We'll start taking nominations beginning November 1st and I thought you might want to nominate The Bridge Project. If so, just post to the community (I'll cross-post for you). The community will vote beginning 11/15 and I'll announce the winning cause December 1st or so.

    Even if the Bridge Project doesn't become our major focus next year, I think it'll be good to remind people about it :)

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  8. Thank you Margie,
    Appreciate the heads up; and did just post a request for The Bridge.
    Sandy

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  9. Happily, we have a small yard, so we can usually get away with raking once or twice. We bag the leaves up, and the town picks up the bags on certain weeks. It makes life much easier! I'm not sure what the town does with all the leaves, though. I don't think they are making mulch with it.

    Thank you for your last comment on my blog. I was very happy to give all those afghan squares to the GS. As far as I know, they are going to sew up the afghans and donate them to Project Linus. I suggested that charity to them because I thought the girls would enjoy making something for other children.

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  10. Hi Sandy,
    So nice to meet you here in blogland! You reminded me that we actually do have a leaf blower! Forgot all about it. Purchased it from our son when he was selling a lot of his stuff.I will have to get that out and use it...or maybe let hubby use it. LOL
    Have a wonderful day!
    Blessings~

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  11. Well we have pine needles that fall but no pretty leaves. Usually the pine needles are raked up by neighbors that use them in their driveways that aren't paved. We have a paved one so if the neighbors want ours they can come knock themselves out raking them up. :-)

    And yep we've done a few of the Flat Stanleys before too! They are really really fun and informative! The last one we took part in ended up getting lost though two or three stops after us, and never got back to the original person. That was kinda sad. But I'm glad it didn't go lost before it got to us... or right after it left here either. LOL

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  12. We live in the woods. We take the leaf blower and blow the leaves from the yard back into the woods. Easy.

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  13. blow them into the woods, nice 2cats...that's a cool thing to do.
    Sandy

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