Low Leaf Blower Season

Alas, we enter low leaf blower season. The time when there may be fewer blowers at work, but they work in concentration and the concerts are longer.

Gone is the leisurely day of whirring grass clippings down the gleaming and pristine asphalt driveway. Gone is the easy, near melodious business of lawn and flower care. Now are the times of managing the canopy. The canopy that falls more each day, gradually bringing all of summer’s cooling respite to the ground.

If the suspect canopy is not leaf-blown regularly then it will crunch noisily underfoot, its greatest offense. So, low leaf-blower season includes multiple performances at the same property each fall. Unlike the summer fare of petals and dry wisps, this time there are piles to be pushed; spectators are treated to longer and louder intervals.

But what of the spectator? Low leaf blower season is also marked by fewer proximal spectators. But, due to many other environmental factors, the sound travels farther on its course and thus with cooler temperatures reaches many more ears.

So low leaf blower season is really not low at all. They continue to be everywhere and at every moment of the day.

Some spectators are more tolerant of others. Some can actually treat the noise as white noise and meditate to it. Well, the same tenacity for peace does not visit upon me. I feel the leaf blowers needling away at my sense of place.

It would be different had we proof that leaf blowers are good. But, in fact, the opposite is true — well documented and well publicized is the fact that our region would be healthier and more diverse without regular, widespread scouring and removal of residential organic matter.

Also well documented, but less well understood, is that before a detrimental behavior can be curtailed it has to be seen, studied and acknowledged for the harm it is. No one can tell you about the impact in a cautionary way. The individual must see it for themselves, and, as motivational speakers all over the world chant, be the change you want to see.