For years, I’ve railed against the proliferation of leaf blowers
in our society. You’ll understand that I
mean those un-muffled machines which disturb the peace of innumerable Australian
weekends. I say ‘Australian’ because I don’t
know whether any other more civilised international communities allow them. I can’t imagine them in France, for example,
or the leafier suburbs of London.
I’ve commented on the madness of some suburban gardener
blowing his fallen leaves into the gutter where they are washed down the drain,
and the resulting fallout when there is an inevitable blockage and it takes 6
men, 2 trucks, and an expensive, dedicated mechanical un-blocker 5 days to make
it right.
Or the road worker I saw trying to blow surplus blue metal
off the side of a bridge, having no success and thinking he needed a bigger
blower when he really needed a broom.
In our yard we have roughly 18 square metres of grass which
we tend lovingly. It was clearly bought from
a nursery and rolled out in situ. No
matter, it is a very attractive green and it grows lustily. The ‘lawn’, as we call it, fits between the
back of the house and the boundary fence and there is a square of concrete at
each end. And that’s where the problem
lies.
When we mow the lawn, grass clippings fly on to the concrete
and they are very difficult to remove. A
broom just doesn’t do it and I’m not a fan of hosing. In this dry continent of ours I resist mis-using
water for purely aesthetic reasons. We
all have to do our bit.
Jamie called in the other day to invite me to go to Bunnings
with him. This is nice but I know it is
just part of the campaign to stop me becoming a boring old man who spends all his
time in the recliner chair. He also likes to take Archie there; he sits on a
box in the trolley chatting to the girls who work on the tills. Ostensibly, Jamie wanted to look at floor
tiles for their bathroom but he made a detour through the section with
gardening tools. Apparently he is having
trouble with falling leaves and thought he might use a blower to push the
leaves back under the tree where they could mulch down and do some good.
He found one machine which was a combined blower and vacuum and
suggested this might be good for me, to deal with the grass problem. I resisted, of course but he pointed out that
I would use the vacuum to pick up the grass, rather than the blower. Because Marilyn is the one who tends to get
the job of dealing with the grass, and it pains me to see her frustration, I
relented and bought one.
Assembling it posed its own problems but eventually it was
ready to go. As you would expect, the
vacuum feature is rubbish but the blower works a treat, and Marilyn is pleased.
