November 20, 2024  |  Carol Baldwin

To the Editor:

Have you experienced this?

After a couple rainy, grey days, the sun is finally shining. It’s a beautiful day in autumn. You decide to go outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air …

… only to hear around you the never ending drone of leaf blowers!

Or maybe you’re driving in your car and you have to swerve out of the way of piles of leaves, dirt, and debris being blown at you. And, my favorite: when you see someone with a blower chasing a single, solitary leaf all the way down a long driveway.

They start sometimes before 8 am, even on weekends. They’re noisy and smelly. The droning goes on ALL DAY LONG! It’s the omnipresent sound of autumn in affluent suburbs.

There is a solution!! This year, I asked my lawn care company to come ONCE in the fall to RAKE the leaves, instead of their weekly blowing. They were confused; when I said I didn’t like the noise of the blowers, they said they could schedule a time to come when I wasn’t home. I told them that wasn’t the issue: I didn’t want to contribute to that ever present droning.

So they agreed.

The crew is here today. The raking sound is pleasant. And, in the weeks before they came, I got a bit of exercise myself raking. It’s actually kind of fun and brings back memories of my youth — of raking, leaf piles to jump in, fireplace fires, hot cider — autumn BEFORE LEAF BLOWERS!

Happy autumn!

—  Carol Baldwin

Editor’s Note: This letter was originally published on November 20, 2020.