Saturday, November 07, 2009

27 bags and raking...

We have a small front yard; maybe 40 feet across and 30 feet in depth. And even if I let the kids out there to play, it's not big enough for kickball or baseball, or even tag. Small. But what we do have out there is one gigantic pine tree that, so far, has dropped 27 lawn bags of pine needles.

As I was out there raking, a little bit each day for the past week, I was wondering when did lawns became vogue. When did some intelligent person have the notion that planting and then manicuring a monocotyledon was the way to go. And what group of individuals said, "Hey that guy, (it had to be a guy), has the right idea." Why not leave all these pine needles where they fall? If you kick away the sticky pine cones, they are soft underfoot. And no mowing...

I have a little bit of front yard left to clean up. Probably another 9 bags worth. (Without taking any seats out, I can fit nine bags in the back of my Suburban.) Then it's on to the big fenced in backyard. Where once the lovely maple leaves fall from our wonderful sugaring trees, they can't blow out. We mulch and composite the back 40. I would hate to think about how many bags that would be, annually; probably hundreds.

1 comment:

P.H. said...

Yes, 9 more exactly... but I didn't rake out the front garden. That will probably be another nine, for another day.