Harvesting Leaves for Compost

Elaine insisted on helping clean up the leaves in our front yard this afternoon. This is the 3rd time we have gone through the ritual of taking off the catcher and shredding the leaves with the mower. Then putting the catcher on and going back over the area picking up a high percentage of the ground-up leaf residue. Only a few of the Linden leaves have fallen from the tree on the north side of the driveway so that may carry over until spring when the neighborhood Pin Oak leaves drop. It does seem that between the Linden and Pin Oaks, we have leaves on our front porch all winter.

I tried to limit Elaine's amount of pushing the mower but believe her carrying the residue back to the compost pile may have been equally demanding. We used the leaf blower to get leaves out of the Barberry Hedge and plantings around the house before even starting the shredding process. Then, plugged it back in again with an extension cord to blow off the driveway, sidewalk and

street gutter. We finished off our yard work by disconnecting the hoses at the front and back of the house, blowing them out, and storing them in the garage for the winter. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day to do our yard work. Tomorrow morning we take things to the recycle center.