Leaf-blower blow up
Leave it to The New Yorker magazine to publish a heavily researched, highly literate and mildly amusing chronicle of a leaf-blower controvery in California.
The article is titled "Blowback," and it is a "Letter from California" written by Tad Friend.
You can't access it online, unless you have a subscription to The New Yorker (and then you don't really need to access it online.)
But if you are not a subscriber, you can read a copy of the Oct. 25 issue in your local library or catch a glimpse of it in your local bookstore -- until they ask you to stop reading magazines you aren't going to purchase.
Anyway, the protagonist in the story is Peter Kendall, who complains that herd of leaf-blowers operated by the workers employed by his wealthy and anal-retentive neighbors is making him deaf -- and sick.
"And then we try to enjoy a salad from our organic garden, and it's covered with a fine dust thrown up by those two-hundred-plus-mile-an-hour bazookas -- a biohazard buffet of diesel soot, brake-lining particles, fungi, mold, spores and animal fecal matter," Kendall tells the magazine.
Is that a good quote, or what?
Among the background tidbits the magazine reports is this: leaf-blowers were invented in Japan in the 1960s to blow insecticides onto fruit trees and onto crops when somebody came up with the idea to remove the chemical cylinder.
And they actually came in handy when Los Angeles suffered a water shortage in the 1970s and they were used instead of hoses to clean sidewalks and driveways.
Things have deteriorated in the California town of Orinda to the point where Kendall's detractors are suggesting that if he wants quiet, he should try a coffin.
As one who will be using a leaf-blower to get the leaves out of her garden this fall (that's the only time we use it), I am suddenly feeling very self-conscious.
Comments
I've always found blowers to be a pestilent scourge. Yesterday, I watched a parks dept worker leaf blow a small paved walkway to a nearby playground that had maybe 5 leaves on it. I wanted to yell at him over all the noise: "Was that worth all the gas spewing?"
The most telling part of the story is blowers replacing hosing off walks -- you know what replaces both of those and does not pollute or use precious resources, a broom!
Posted by: Kathy J, Washington Gardener Mag | November 2, 2010 4:10 PM
What happened to using a big broom or a rake to gather leaves? Washing off the walkways and drives is not necessary each time leaves are removed. I personally think it's not so horrible to see a few leaves here or there. 'Tis the season after all. It's just not worth all the gas and noise to use blowers so often. They are a handy tool to have, but I am cutting the use back to one day a week instead of two on my property.
I agree. Tis the season. -- Susan
Posted by: Melinda Winn | November 8, 2010 2:21 PM