RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! It’s that time of year when my tranquility is destroyed almost daily.<\/p>\n
I’ve always detested leaf blowers. From the first time I heard that horrible noise, I declared that all leaf blowers should be outlawed and their users thrown in jail.<\/p>\n
I can’t count how many times I’ve had a meditative hike, an afternoon nap, or a peaceful kayak paddle ruined by the obnoxious roar of a leaf blower. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n
When I discovered that Dad had one, for his gravel yard in Arizona, I felt betrayed. How could this outlaw be my father? He was very hard of hearing, so the noise didn’t bother him.<\/p>\n
I might have made my peace with leaf blowers if they didn’t seem so pointless. Why use an 80-decibel blower when you can have the soothing rhythms and pleasant exercise of raking leaves – which is just as fast and more controlled<\/a>, too? How could blowing the leaves somewhere else be a solution, anyhow? Why would someone who calls herself a gardener blow nature’s mulch and fertilizer away from<\/i>\u00a0plants?<\/p>\n I am not alone – many communities have banned leaf blowers<\/a>. In our community, you can’t use them on Sundays.<\/p>\n Here at the rental house, there’s a long driveway, and so the owners left their leaf blower in the garage. I rolled my eyes at it. As if.<\/p>\n You’d think that being the ripe old age of 57 I would know better than to say “Never.” But as recently as yesterday, I looked at that blower and said for the 100th time:\u00a0I will never use a leaf blower.<\/i><\/p>\n Today I was having one of my bad days<\/a>, when anxiety overtook me like a satanic possession. I cowered on the couch in my pajamas and kept sipping herbal tea, hoping it would pass.<\/p>\n Finally I decided I’d go out and sweep the leaves from the driveway. The exercise and communing with nature on a pleasant fall day was bound to help at least a little.<\/p>\n As I started in with the push broom, I could see that I was going to have a problem. I’d swept the driveway once before, and now its edges were piled high with leaves. The wind had gathered leaves against the retaining wall more than two feet deep.<\/p>\n I thought of the leaf blower, but no – surely the noise would make me more anxious. Probably drive me right over the edge. I kept sweeping.<\/p>\n Then I thought, well, maybe it would be cathartic. Like breaking glass<\/a>, or burning old paper in a bonfire. Maybe the roar would dispel the anxiety, blast it out of my system.<\/p>\n I got the damn thing out of the garage, unwound the double extension cord and plugged it in. Gritting my teeth, I pulled the switch.<\/p>\n RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n I pointed the blower snout like a fire hose at the nearest pile of leaves. And immediately began to laugh and laugh.<\/p>\n The leaves danced straight up into the air, as though taken by surprise; blew into a huge puffy circle, and then danced their way around and down. It was like watching a flock of hysterical and clumsy chickens.<\/p>\n I aimed at the top of the pile. The leaves flew up and drifted down like huge confetti pieces. My own private ticker tape parade!<\/p>\n I ran around the driveway pointing the leaf blower and making parties. I laughed and laughed.<\/p>\n I was out there for an hour with that thing. It takes awhile to clear big piles, and some of them I pushed back and forth across the driveway on purpose. The masses of leaves looked like waves as I blew them, and I felt as powerful as an\u00a0ocean god.<\/p>\n Underneath the piles were stockades of acorns, and when I pointed the blower at them, they shot across the driveway like startled round rabbits. That made me laugh, too – there’s something inherently funny about inanimate objects that acquire a sudden life force and don’t know what to do with it.<\/p>\n Afterward I felt so much better that I took a long walk. Smiling.<\/p>\n Who needs Valium when you have a leaf blower?<\/p>\n Today’s penny is a 1991 – the year Santa Monica banned leaf blowers.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! It’s that time of year when my tranquility is destroyed almost daily. I’ve always detested leaf blowers. From the first time I heard that horrible noise, I declared that all leaf blowers should be outlawed and their users thrown in jail. I can’t count how many times I’ve had a meditative hike, an afternoon … read more A loud therapy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[104,491,399,400,186,585],"class_list":["post-9912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-104","tag-anxiety","tag-autumn","tag-leaves","tag-noise","tag-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9912"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9922,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912\/revisions\/9922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}