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Freakin' Leaves

miairhead

New member
Took advantage of 70 degree weather in Michigan today. Normal fall day, winding, leaves on the road: mostly pretty normal. That was till I rounded a curve, several inches of leaves on the road. Some fool was mowing his yard and blowing the leaves across the the road. There he was in the other lane thankfully blowing the leaves. Must of been 4 inches of leaves he was blowing to the other side.

Was a great day, little winding but sunny and nice. Must of been every bike in the area enjoying the last warm day. Lots of groups out, only one lone Beemer I saw.
 
We have a few neighbours that get rid of their leaves by raking or blowing them onto the street. I curse them every time I ride past their houses on wet days. :banghead
 
Solution to this (neighbor blowing leaves into the street) is the same as for a neighbor's dog dumping in your yard ... after dark, go empty all your bags of leaves into the middle of his yard. Might take more than once for the jerk to get the message.
 
Last summer while driving my truck with the window down, I got hit in the side of the head with a rock which was thrown by an idiot's lawn mower while he was blowing his grass out into the street...
The stupidity of people just amazes me.
Ken
 
Here in Mass. they water the road all summer, blow leaves in road all fall, then throw snow in road all winter. Seems to be the same folks doing it all year.
 
Sometimes you really want to slap the stupid out of them, but as my Dad once said - " Son, you just can't fix stupid so you're going to have to learn to get used to it, some people are just like that".
 
Here in Mass. they water the road all summer, blow leaves in road all fall, then throw snow in road all winter. Seems to be the same folks doing it all year.

Wow! I thought it was just around me. This didn't seem to happen in the past. My theory is the "new" to home ownership grew up in an environment where the parents did everything for them-(they never had to mow the lawn). This has led to the "new" homeowners trying to do property maintenance without the guidance of their father or grandfather to tell them "not to blow that crap in the road".
This coupled with the diminishing lack of civility............ :gerg OM
 
i asked a neighbour last winter why he was shovelling snow into the road. I was told to mind my own business. I explained that there were bylaws against that practice. He told me, quite fiercely, to have a nice day. As I left, he moved that snow back onto the boulevard. :dance
 
When I lived in Kansas (Fort Riley) I just mowed my grass real, real short. When the big Kansas winds came up I would be left with a clean lawn. My next door neighbor had a yard full of leaves. :wave
 
It disappointing that law enforcement does get more proactive with these dangerous violations. We get people pushing snow across the road and leaving a mess difficult to get through or around. Very dangerous, especially in whiteout conditons.
 
We have a few neighbours that get rid of their leaves by raking or blowing them onto the street. I curse them every time I ride past their houses on wet days. :banghead

In my town, we rake the leaves to the curb and the borough vacuums them every couple of days. You have to be careful when driving, but it helps people get rid of the leaves without burning or sending them to the landfill.

The vac truck sucks them up and takes them to our yard waste fill area. It seems to work.
 
Around here you get a 120.oo $ ticket if you are caught blowing leaves onto the road. My city wants you to bag em and place them curbside then they pick them up once a week untill the snow flys.They are very seriuos about this hazard.

Bag them and send them to the landfill? That doesn't make sense.

The leaves will decompose many years before the bags.
 
I guess I'm in the minority here but despite living in snow and falling leaf territory for much of life, I don't get very excited about that stuff in the road. It can be seen or avoided if paying attention and has never risen to a serious hazard level for me. I used to get much more annoyed about the municipal plow guys leaving a 4 ft snow berm across the end of my driveway right after it got cleared- so it had to be removed again before cars could get out. Nothing like moving a ton or two of slushy snow for fun...I "fixed" that when I added a 4WD with bash plate to the fleet and just drove through it or over it, if it froze in place.

We always got rid of leaves by burning when I was kid (kids job to do the yard, of course). And we had plenty- enough to put a 18-24" layer over the whole property. We'd push them into the big dry creek bed in the back and end up with a pile the whole width of the property and filling the creek bed right to the top- maybe 8 ft deep and 25 ft wide. The fun came when we poured something from 1/2 to a full gallon of gasoline sprinkled down into the leaves and gave it time to vaporize, then laid a gas trail so we could ignite from a safe distance. (Think of molotov cocktail leaf disposal). Done right, one got a spectacular leaf explosion of a whole creek full of flaming leaves jumping several feet upward and with a very satisfying thump of ignition. These days, folks would think terrorists were making explosive devices. We also learned to use vaporized gasoline to mortar the muskrats out of banks to prevent floodwater from washing the bank downstream...
 
I guess I'm in the minority here but despite living in snow and falling leaf territory for much of life, I don't get very excited about that stuff in the road. It can be seen or avoided if paying attention and has never risen to a serious hazard level for me. I used to get much more annoyed about the municipal plow guys leaving a 4 ft snow berm across the end of my driveway right after it got cleared- so it had to be removed again before cars could get out. Nothing like moving a ton or two of slushy snow for fun...I "fixed" that when I added a 4WD with bash plate to the fleet and just drove through it or over it, if it froze in place.

We always got rid of leaves by burning when I was kid (kids job to do the yard, of course). And we had plenty- enough to put a 18-24" layer over the whole property. We'd push them into the big dry creek bed in the back and end up with a pile the whole width of the property and filling the creek bed right to the top- maybe 8 ft deep and 25 ft wide. The fun came when we poured something from 1/2 to a full gallon of gasoline sprinkled down into the leaves and gave it time to vaporize, then laid a gas trail so we could ignite from a safe distance. (Think of molotov cocktail leaf disposal). Done right, one got a spectacular leaf explosion of a whole creek full of flaming leaves jumping several feet upward and with a very satisfying thump of ignition. These days, folks would think terrorists were making explosive devices. We also learned to use vaporized gasoline to mortar the muskrats out of banks to prevent floodwater from washing the bank downstream...

Can I get a YEEHAW!!!
 
I have a neighbor in my town who are too lazy to dispose of his leaves properly. So they spend hours running the lawnmower back and forth in one direction to blow the leaves out into the street. In our town, we pick up the leaves ourselves, then deposit them in a huge pile at a designated location in town. Then a big tractor comes and fills up a couple of semi-trailer dump trucks. The leaves are then hauled to farmer's fields where they are spread out and tilled into the soil.

The funny thing about the neighbor: 1), he is on the town council. 2) He has so much free time, he can spend all day blowing leaves into the street instead of bagging them and hauling them to the dump - which is faster. Of course, this is the same guy who during the warm months, clears out his garage and sprays down the floor with the hose every Saturday. And the only thing that ever happens in the garage is his wife drives her minivan in and out of it each day.

I tell him in my next life, I plan to have a life like his, which has lots of free time. He has no hobbies, no real hands-on skills, and despite being on highway construction engineer, really does not apply himself much.

On second thought, that all sounds pretty boring.
 
Wow, what a discussion! One of my son's just moved to Knoxville,TN & there are certain days they come by & pick up your leaves (from the street) & certain days they PU the branches & certain days they PU the trash. Is not this common for those that live in that "dignified " way of city folks?
I was telling my BIL how isn't it silly how I read,r.e., "city folks" complaining about the city being late to pick up sticks & he gets all riled up saying "I pay a lot of taxes & expect that service!", me having expounded as to how "sure isn't anybody picks up my mess out in the boonies"!
All in the expectations.
I really don't see the rift here either as to people blowing leaves/grass on a road or street when I live in a area of millions of acres of trees with leaves. Here @ my woods home we just blow them down the hill further into the woods -no taxes, no worry. FWIW my private road is deep in leaves & a bit white this a.m..
 
leaves in the road are a simple fact of fall life, so I slow down and scan hard for deer

Grass in the summer is more treacherous. It is just a slick, but there is no seasonal warning . Then there are the morons that do not even stop mowing when traffic is passing pelting them with grass and possible rocks.
Rod
 
Bag them and send them to the landfill? That doesn't make sense.

The leaves will decompose many years before the bags.


As I recall, the city I worked for did collect yard waste seperately for some time. They took it to the regional wastewater plant, mixed it with processed sludge ,composted it awhile in huge piles turned a lot , then SOLD it to regional nurseries and home centers. Dillo Dirt is still available, they are still at it I suppose.

I move the leaves from point A,B,C to point D with a blower, a truck,Mule , or wheelbarrow maybe once a year....about now it seems:doh. I maintain maybe 3/4 acre of our 6 acre space and we have a lot of big trees. I compost it or on occasion still burn them...harder with the long lasting burn ban we had. I prefer nature to take care of it, but some years it is crazy thick with leaves and the piles get huge.

As far as riding in them...once you let your senses relax and realize they are not rocks or small animals...Roll on! Just spent a week and a half in the National Forests of NW Arkansas...leaves were plentiful and moving. Grass can be bad depending on what it is sitting on...have had bicycle incidents due to that.

I also don't get the non common sense folks exhibit when you walk,ride,drive near anyone using a mower and looking right at you. Dude(tte), stop for a minute would you?

I have knocked a windowpane from it's viewable state more than once with my mowers and weedeaters since I live on a rockpile as well as being pelted in and on vehicles...it's kinda scary passing that mower when you see all the junk flying out of the discharge...especially when that is a gang of highway mowers:bolt
 
Bag them and send them to the landfill? That doesn't make sense.

The leaves will decompose many years before the bags.

Towns that let you send leaves to the land fill usually require you to buy large paper bags that decompose fast.
In our town the city has a large lot where you can drop off your leaves and if you have them in plastic bags, you must empty the leaves out and take the plastic bags home.
 
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