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
As I told my hubby, there’s power in numbers. I was an early adopter on the Facebook Page One Million People Against Leafblowers which now has a whopping 91 members. Won’t you join the hapless cause? https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000000thatrake/
While I understand this to be an urban/suburban problem, rural homesteaders have a different view on this issue. We have neither the time or energy for suplurfluous uses of tools such as leaf blowers. Our leaf blower is the superior tool for removing fall leaves from our very long forrest driveway, for important maintenance and safety reasons. We simply haven’t come up with a better way to remove and collect the leaves for composting while keeping the gravel where it needs to be. Indeed, this is it’s only purpose. You folks ain’t getting my leaf blower.
Sorry that others seem addicted to mowing, cutting and blowing things, year ’round, for no good reasons other than asthetics, pleasing the POA, and impressing the neighbors.
“which now has a whopping 91 members.”
That got a LOL from me!
“Won’t you join the hapless cause?”
Oh, I’m so with you in spirit, but I had to delete my Facebook account on account of Facebook being nearly as bad and ugly as leaf blowers. If anyone sets up a not-Facebook way for me to register my contempt and allegiance, I’d be mighty pleased.
You should have seen it the day in Santa Fe’s world famous plaza (I live in Santa Fe) when the “workers” with the leaf blowers filled the entire bowl between the buildings with a great choke-inducing cloud of dust! Meanwhile, the natives under the portal of the Palace of the Governors watched in astonished and bewildered nonchalance.
You raise some valid points but leaf blowers are very helpful to your grass. If you have a collection of leaves on your lawn then this will kill the grass underneath, leaving you with an unattractive lawn.
What if you have no grass, but your neighbour does? Does the benefit to THEIR turf outweigh the invasion of sound space that the article addresses?
What’s wrong with a rake?
I couldn’t agree more — rakes and brooms do the trick for us.
Nothing at all wrong with a rake if you have a small yard or you’re retired. Frankly, I don’t have days and days of free time available to rake several acres when a blower can do the job in a few hours.
Nothing at all wrong with a rake if you have a large outside space COMBINED with the desire to enjoy it, which is not CONFUSED with a desire to enjoy YOUR MACHINES.
Nothing at all wrong with exercise. Nothing at all wrong with breaking a task up. Nothing at all wrong with small yards. Nothing at all wrong with employing someone, especially if you can afford a large property.
And how about… if you can’t afford to have the property maintained without disturbing the neighbours, then maybe you can’t REALLY afford the property?
There is no combination of stupidity and laziness that could force you to use one of these infernal machines. You use it because you LIKE it. You are PROUD of the noise. And you are pathetic.
Our spiritual tests come in many forms these days… We may be living in a Michael Palin movie.
The gas model is not good for me, too. Now I use a backpack electric blower and it’s very quiet and no smoke.
I think you guys are missing some points. The trees drop their leaves for a reason. They harvest nutrients from deep in the soil ever year and deposit it as its leaves that it can then again use for growth. But its not just that. The leaves help mycorrhizal fungi form which is able to metabolize the nutrients the trees and grass cant take up by itself. It also makes a web of fungi that connects the nearby plants into a cluster or sort that is able to share and distribute nutrients in a balanced way. The best thing is the chop them up with the lawn mower a few times and let it rain a few times. Its helping for a humus layer of the soil in which earthworms can further boost nutrients like oxygen by aerating the soil and its castings rich in nitrogen.