I've been alive so long I can remember a time when moms and dads would send out their little ones with a device that could easily be described as a giant fork with many tines to rake up the leaves that fell off of trees. The leaves would be gathered up and placed into Hefty bags and set alongside the road to be picked up by the powers that pick things up.
As Amber noted in her post today, things are stormy. We're Oregonians so we're used to rain. But I'm not used to the sudden formation of Olympic-sized swimming pools that appear around storm drains as a result of people using leaf blowers to remove leaves from their property. I hit two such puddles tonight and, I kid you not, water was splashed up over the hood of Sophie. For a split second, I was thinking she might sputter and stall but she bucked up and rode the waves to the lesser wet pavement beyond. Fall rocks.
3 comments:
Ooh, ooh, we still rake! Some fancier neighborhoods in Portland get to pile their leaves up in the street and the city will come take them away. But not us. We have huge trees in our front and back yard so we fill up dozens of yard debris bags every year with leaves and pine needles. By we, I mean Andrew and the kids. It's good father-child time.
I will say though, this last storm hit really fast. We (again, Andrew and the kids) raked everything up over the weekend and today you can't even see any grass in our front yard. The lawn and the sidewalk are covered by about an inch of pine needles. It must have been really windy last night. (Just ask Erin, who apparently didn't like it. I slept right through it all though.)
A drain on the corner by our house clogged so much it filled half the intersection. It was on a corner with no trees nearby. A down the street neighbor tried to unclog it unsuccessfully. It turned out the clogging debris was deep within the drain, and probably had been there awhile but only was relevant during the deluge. One has to call the city for such things, apparently.
Amber, I'll totally take you up on the offer of your husband and children to come rake the leaves! ;-)
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