Autumn's Aftermath

Living in NH I appreciate the beauty of the fall colors. I can look out my window and enjoy scenery that many folks drive hundreds of miles to see.

After enjoying the colors the "leafpeepers" drive hundreds of miles back home. Those of us who stay behind have to deal with the downed leaves.

We live in a valley and are surrounded by forest. The prevailing winds blow through the valley and deposit lots of leaves.

My wife and I work as a team to remove leaves. She uses the back pack blower to put the leaves in big piles or rows.


This is a pic of the back yard and the leaf vac.


We have this great leaf vacuum. It is designed to be hooked up to a mower deck. But that never worked well for us. I park it near the piles my wife created and rake the leaves into the vac hose. In the background of this pic you can see the volume of leaves we get.


Once the leaf vac hopper is full we dump them off of the edge of the drive way. There is a steep bank there. This prevents the leaves from blowing back out in windy weather.


And this is the finished backyard.


We spent 18 hours total ( 5 on Sat and 4 on Sunday X 2 people) to get rid of the leaves. Before the leaf vac we used rakes, tarps and a wheelbarrow. That would take 3 of us a total of
120 hrs spread out over 2 or 3 weekends. Sometimes the snow fell before all of the leaves were up. I much prefer the vac method.
Though we both needed advil at the end of each day.