April 2010
Greetings, from beautifully wooded, peacefully secluded, sometimes sunny, but mostly not, Petticoat Lake where the sky is blue, the temperature is high and the wind is howling at a steady 20 miles per hour with 30 - 40 mph gusts. Wind gusts of 30 - 40 mph could blow the hair clean off your head - if it was a toupee, or maybe hair plugs, or maybe even the Magic Spray Spray - On Hair that is like Silly String for your head.
Near gale force winds notwithstanding, Spring has arrived. Huzzah! At 7:00 a.m. Friday morning it 52 degrees here on Petticoat Lake, and at 5:00 p.m., the temperature was 72. I’m sure the Upper Peninsula is setting records for high temperatures in April. It’s about time, too. I sure get tired of hearing about and living in a region that has record low temps, above average snowfalls and generally nasty weather until July. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m loving 72 degrees. And, I don’t even care that it’s windy - it’s 72 degrees!
Now that Spring is here, thoughts turn to spring-like things, like gardening. And yard work. There is a reason that yard work is called Yard Work. Despite the fact that raking looks easy, to the casual observer who is sitting on the deck sipping a margarita, it is hard work. Way harder than doing laundry, which I usually don’t do either. But, the weather was nice, and I wanted to spend time outdoors soaking up Vitamin D, so I agreed to help with the Yard Work. Which translated to, “Raking Last Year’s Leaves”.
Anybody who has ever raked leaves knows that before you even begin Spring raking, you have to choose the correct rake for the task at hand. There are about a billion styles of rakes available, but in the end you will probably use only two types; the Bow Rake, or the Leaf Rake. The bow rake is constructed of steel which makes it heavy, and the tines of a bow rake get caught on just about everything except very small rocks. The Leaf Rake is a better choice for raking dry leaves because the tines are usually made of light weight metal, bamboo or plastic and they have some flexibility so they don’t get caught on everything in the yard.
My favorite rake is the Shrubbery Rake - it is a miniature version of the leaf rake; small and light and great for getting the leaves out of nooks and crannies and from between rocks. I would not, however, recommend raking an entire yard with a shrubbery rake; to do so would be akin to sweeping a floor with a broom designed for children - you know what I’m talking about, the cute little broom with the pink handle that you bought for your daughters when they were little in the hopes that you could trick them into helping with the housework. Yea, it didn’t work for me, either.
Now that Spring is here, thoughts turn to spring-like things, like gardening. And yard work. There is a reason that yard work is called Yard Work. Despite the fact that raking looks easy, to the casual observer who is sitting on the deck sipping a margarita, it is hard work. Way harder than doing laundry, which I usually don’t do either. But, the weather was nice, and I wanted to spend time outdoors soaking up Vitamin D, so I agreed to help with the Yard Work. Which translated to, “Raking Last Year’s Leaves”.
Anybody who has ever raked leaves knows that before you even begin Spring raking, you have to choose the correct rake for the task at hand. There are about a billion styles of rakes available, but in the end you will probably use only two types; the Bow Rake, or the Leaf Rake. The bow rake is constructed of steel which makes it heavy, and the tines of a bow rake get caught on just about everything except very small rocks. The Leaf Rake is a better choice for raking dry leaves because the tines are usually made of light weight metal, bamboo or plastic and they have some flexibility so they don’t get caught on everything in the yard.
My favorite rake is the Shrubbery Rake - it is a miniature version of the leaf rake; small and light and great for getting the leaves out of nooks and crannies and from between rocks. I would not, however, recommend raking an entire yard with a shrubbery rake; to do so would be akin to sweeping a floor with a broom designed for children - you know what I’m talking about, the cute little broom with the pink handle that you bought for your daughters when they were little in the hopes that you could trick them into helping with the housework. Yea, it didn’t work for me, either.
Anyway, back to raking, which, oddly enough, is a lot like sweeping except that sweeping requires less effort. The physical component in raking requires that you thrust the rake of choice forward into a pile of whatever it is that you want to move, then use the rake to pull a portion of the pile of stuff back toward you. Then, you repeat the process again, and again and again until the entire pile of stuff has been moved from point A to point Z. (Points B thru Y represent the many times you have moved the entire pile of stuff on the way to successfully reaching point Z).
There are several shortcuts one could use when raking; one could have a large lawn and leaf bag close by and one could gather the leaves into the bag instead of raking the leaves across the entire yard. One could have a garden cart close by and gather the leaves into the cart. As a last resort shortcut, one could haul out the leaf blower and blow the leaves across the yard and onto the street and let someone else rake your leaves for you. I choose to not use any shortcuts when raking because they eliminate any chance of receiving praise for a job well done . By praise, I mean having my every need tended to. Furthermore, shortcuts cast doubt on my excuse for not doing any yard work in the future. “I would love to help in the yard, but you know, my muscles are still kind of sore from that one entire day I spent raking all those wet, heavy leaves…”
So, on Thursday afternoon we spent a few hours doing yard work and it was worth the effort. The lawn looked nice and the flowerbeds were ready for planting; it felt good to get a jump on the season. Then on Friday, the temperature soared to 72 degrees and the winds were steady at 20 mph with gusts between 30-40 miles per hour.
Have you ever seen what happens to a pile of leaves when it is hit by a 30 mile per hour wind gust ?
And that’s all I have to say about that...
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