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Page added on October 23, 2013
Kiss the hand that blows the leaves
Leaf blowers maintain a line against the enemy. Photo: hecrorir/Flickr.
I’ve never understood the benefit of a gasoline-powered leaf blower over a rake or a broom — except to create an ear-splitting whir whose only possible satisfaction must be to make the tool-wielder feel more macho.
But yesterday I came to realize that the leaf blower, whose antique two-stroke engine technology enables such a small tool to make such a big noise, is not merely one of the top ten stupidest machines ever invented, along with the electric nose-hair clipper and the electric hand lotion warmer.
As to the leaf blower, it’s clear now that this idiotic engine is a perfect metaphor for everything that’s wrong with our attitude towards technology in industrial consumerism.
Yes, technology, even if it barely rises to an East German level. Let me explain.
A couple times a week I travel out to the middle of a cornfield to teach English at the local community college. Picturesquely located adjacent to Interstate 81, the site provides excellent acoustics to distinguish the many passing 18-wheelers from lesser diesel trucks.
But since yesterday was perhaps the finest day of the year, sunny and fresh, I wanted to offer my students a break from our low-ceilinged classroom of cinder blocks and acoustic tiles by holding class outside.
Before class, I scouted the campus for a spot shielded from the relentless highway din. After twenty minutes, I settled on an unloved area behind the art gallery with a picnic table that had probably never been used. You could hear the gallery’s HVAC blower, but at least the interstate traffic was blocked by the building.
So when class started, I hiked my students over to the site. We settled down and divided out the five roles for an out-loud reading of Susan Glaspell’s short play Trifles. And then we started.
It went fine for about five minutes until a couple of landscape guys came along and began leaf blowing. Upholding the enigma of their mystic brotherhood, their method was inscrutable. On this lonely hillside, there was no path or flowerbed that needed clearing. So they blew leaves from one patch of grass to another, even as the breeze blew the leaves back to the original spot.
As my students strained their ears to hear any of the clues of Glaspell’s murder mystery, to me it was the proverbial ten minutes that became an eternity.
Afterwards, the result looked like digging a hole and filling it up again. There were still plenty of leaves. The leaf men had brought no Hefty bag to haul away their red, yellow and orange loot, which remained in situ. But no matter. The determination of the blowmen showed that their actions surely conformed to some ancient and sacred rule of leaf-management arcana.
Perhaps they were just evening out the leaf distribution for a more consistent look?
Or, perhaps as in a Kafka story, the leaf management authorities simply wanted to demonstrate to the populace that, if leaves fall, they will be blown. You may think they’re being blown for you. But in that case, you would be wrong. Leaf-blowing blows only to realize its own destiny.
Indeed, the leaf blower does not work to serve the people; the people exist to serve the leaf blower.
Puny attempts to banish the leaf blower may tempt incautious citizens here and there. But for every limit on the ancient prerogatives of the leaf blower anywhere, suburban homeowners associations, manufacturers lobbies and compliant local officials will ensure that a hundred times as much leaf-blowing will soon appear elsewhere.
Yes, my friends. If leaves fall, they will be blown.
Ultimately, the realist will learn to accept the leaf blower. And she who truly wishes to live a well adjusted life will strive mightily against her lower nature and will work, whether awake or in her dreams, to develop a deep affection for the leaf blower.
Properly cultivated, that feeling can only be described as love.
– Erik Curren, Transition Voice
9 Comments on "Kiss the hand that blows the leaves"
D. Welch on Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 3:51 pm
Just because something is made and sold doesn’t mean we have to use it. Having said that, perhaps such tools are appropriate in certain situations. A local farmer I knew cut firewood all his life, and then, at age 65 bought an oil furnace. Likewise, perhaps tools such as leaf blowers are best reserved for the elderly and physically disabled. Older people and someone with a physical issue that made raking difficult might consider such a tool a godsend.
ghung on Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 5:30 pm
Cute article. Agreed about tools being appropriate for certain situations. Our gravel driveway is 2500 feet long through a deciduous forest, and not removing the fall leaves causes all sorts of safety and maintenance problems. We’ve tried raking, vacuuming, sweeping, etc. and our small ICE leaf blower is by far the superior method of gathering the leaves (and not the gravel) for collection and composting. It only gets used a few hours a year, burning perhaps a liter of fuel. That’s a trade-off I can live with.
Same with the chainsaws: a few hours a year and a couple of gallons of fuel begets heating fuel for an entire year. Homesteaders generally have a different view of what is and what isn’t ‘appropriate technology’.
Keith on Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 6:06 pm
Lithium Ion batteries are making some decided in-roads on noisy landscape maintenance tool technology. You can now get emission-free, still-noisy-but-not-quite-so-much blowers, weed wackers, hedge-trimmers, and mowers.
Whether they are better than a push mower, hedge clippers, hand edgers, rakes, or even changing to native- vegetation-based landscaping is another question…
Norm on Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 7:41 pm
Toro makes a snow blower to clear your suburban driveway. So loud it will wake the dead. 2-cycle. Probably instead of a muffler, they put on a trumpet horn. Popular with the Armageddon apocalypse crowd. Wreck your winter snowfall. Instead of tranquil time with a shovel. Just pull the rope and its the end of the world. Seven hundred at Home Cheapo.
James on Thu, 24th Oct 2013 2:38 am
Why don’t they just leave the leaves? They eventually break down and provide nutrients for other plants. Why does everything have to be so neat?
BillT on Thu, 24th Oct 2013 3:59 am
What a bunch of government workers in the picture. Most of them could use the exercise a rake would give them.
My retired neighbors had a leaf blower … me. At age 14, I raked and hauled leaves for them every Fall. They had a landscaped acre full of English ivy beds, flower beds and trees. Spring was cutting back the ivy, trimming, mowing, hauling, burning, had digging the kitchen garden 40 X 60 feet, and various other spring maintenance. Summer, mow, rake, etc. Fall, leaves, trim, prep for Winter. All at $1 per hour with a 5 minute break every hour.
I saved and bought my first car with that money. $500 for a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria V8 in 1961 when I was 17.
PrestonSturges on Thu, 24th Oct 2013 5:27 am
Raking is a lot harder than people think. It’s not like sweeping, it’s more like about 30% as hard as shoveling snow. You’re not going to have a heart attack and drop dead doing it, but it’s definitely exercise.
deedl on Thu, 24th Oct 2013 6:14 am
@PrestonSturges
As with most physical exercises you will propably have the heart attack and drop dead from not doing it 🙂
rollin on Thu, 24th Oct 2013 1:01 pm
Much of my lawn has been converted to gardens, but for what is left I just mulch the leaves with the lawn mower. The small leaf bits disappear into the lawn and feed minerals to the soil.
I don’t see why the manufacturer can’t put better mufflers on those annoying machines. I have neighbors who can’t do anything without running an ICE. They have spent many thousands of dollars and have to keep spending time and money to maintain or replace all that machinery.