We live on land largely covered with huge oak and beech trees deposited by nature long before we arrived. These friends gracefully shade and cool us for most of three seasons, spring, summer and early fall. Then, windy, cool days inspire them to liberate the well-worn brown mantle in preparation for the novice leaves of spring. Nature at its best.
Growing up in Southampton during the 1950s, distinct activities marked each season. Winter was sledding at the golf course and ice skating on Little Fresh Pond or Old Town Pond. In spring, we traded sleds for drop lines to catch fish in Lake Agawam. After a productive morning, my sister, cousin and I hauled our bucket of fish to Dad’s hardware store on Main Street to show off the catch. Then we returned to the lake and set them free.
Summer was my favorite. We spent hours at the beaches, both bay and ocean, under mothers’ watchful eyes. Sunday night beach picnics meant oodles of friends and cousins, a big bonfire, and hot dogs cooking on a stick.
And, finally, there was fall, so aptly named given the activity of trees and their leaves. We fearlessly dove into huge leaf piles that our fathers mounded while raking the lawn. On clear, crisp weekend afternoons, children all over town could be found running at top speed, then launching into mountains of leaves.
Teenage boys walked from house to house, rakes in hand. They raked for cash pay and made a good income. In summer, they did the same with mowing. It was not a libelous era, so the boys were hired, and the homeowner paid cash, with a tip for a trip to Sip ‘n’ Soda.
Upcoming generations may never appreciate the quiet rhythm of lawn raking. Blowers are a fixture of their landscape and generation. Does it matter? Maybe not, but I sense that they are missing an awesome natural world around them.
Over engines whirring, their ears can’t experience sounds like the whooshing wings and honking of a hundred geese heading south, the subtle sounds of squirrels and chipmunks in the leaves, bird callings, the sound of a rough ocean all the way on Main Street, or simply the autumn wind.
Leaf raking is a meditative job, high on my list of excellent exercise options. I can’t say that for the leaf blowing. The few times I have used a blower, I found it loud and dusty, and the machinery burdensome to carry around the yard. It took too much time to corral the flying leaves flying this way and that to their destination.
Admittedly, I lack enough experience for blower finesse. Still, I’ll choose a simple rake and tarp for leaf cleanup any day.
Our neighbors have their properties blown clean. Daily, the crews arrive in early morning, and we listen to piles and piles of leaves being blown back and forth, back and forth, to their destination, the mega pile, which is carted away.
Our neighbors arrive at their pristine properties on Friday night unaware of the earsplitting engine sounds they missed all week.
This year, I wanted to test once and for all if my hunch was true: that raking was not radically slower than blowing.
I called a local landscaping and maintenance company who has an environmentally friendly approach. I suggested a small study, explaining my position on leaf blowers vs. rakes. I wanted to find out how long it might take their crew, half of them blowing and half raking, to de-leaf the designated sections, about three-quarters of an acre. It is landscaped by nature, mainly oak trees and a large stand of beech. A carpet of moss covers much of it. It is not your average lawn, for sure. But I wanted to know: rakes or blowers, which would take longer?
The owner and his reluctant manager kindly came over to look at the scope of it all. We walked the property. I nervously jabbered on about how my husband and I usually rake it by hand. Our approach averages an hour a day over a few weeks, quite doable, for us.
I was grateful for their polite attention and fledgling interest, but knew it was a long shot.
A day or two later, I got the estimate for the work, which was way, way, way out of our league. I suggested to my husband that we do all the raking again this year and keep meticulous track of our hours. Then we could compare it to their estimated cost.
I get it: Property care businesses have invested in the purchase and maintenance of the blowers, and all else necessary for their crews to achieve good service. Once invested, no one really wants to consider that a rake costing roughly $40 could achieve the same thing as a $200 blower. Society seems to be convinced that more mechanization is more efficient. But is that so, and at what real costs?
If noise were the only issue, I might be able to let it go. What about the air quality the community takes in as they return home or open windows after all the blowing? When I ride my bicycle on errands, it is unnerving to enter a neighborhood that is being blown, with dust permeating the air. Luckily, these days I have a mask constantly at hand.
More pressing, however, is the health of the machine operators, mostly young Hispanic men who do not wear masks and daily breathe the continual cloud of dust rife with residue of products applied as fertilizer or pest control. What about the future of their health, too?
My husband, Eric, and I are raking our way around the property and tracking our hours. We are almost finished and think we are well ahead of the landscaper’s proposal. So far, it has been about 20 man-hours.
We generally rake for about an hour and half each day totaling three “man” hours. Like any endeavor, we have gotten into the groove of it. Raking is rhythmic and meditative. The fall air is fresh.
Each of us has a tarp onto which we rake leaves to haul onto the mammoth pile in the woods section of our property. If we didn’t have the woods, we would hire someone to cart them to the town landfill composting pile. There’s way too many to bag for town pick-up.
When the day’s work session is complete, there’s a moment of taking it in. We stand with rakes and empty tarps, “American Gothic”-like, and admire the fruit of our labor.
I hold hope that homeowners will start requesting quiet, environmentally sound services. It seems like a no-brainer, but does it even occur to anyone anymore? It takes customer demand to generate change. The industry’s deep investment in gas-powered machinery will not be lost. The many large, sprawling properties will need them.
A couple of years ago, I was riding into town when I encountered a distinguished-looking man raking leaves in front of a rather large home on Hill Street. Here was someone making the change!
I braked, hopped off my bicycle and bowed somewhat dramatically. His serious expression quickly turned into a smile as I stood up and gave him a salute, too, explaining that I wanted to acknowledge his marvelous choice of activity.
He explained that he liked the fresh air and exercise. Well, my, my, a rare raking fan.
A few months later, I was in New York City for a Southampton Historical Museum thank you party at the lovely Upper East Side home of a museum supporter whom I had yet to meet. To my great surprise, I already had. It was the raker.
Now that is a fun story!
Hilary Herrick Woodward is a resident of Southampton.
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