Raking Leaves

Downtown Highlands was pretty quiet at 9:00 a.m. this morning when I started running, so I took a turn down Main Street.  Parked in the center aisle opposite the coffee shop were six or seven exotic-looking sports cars.  There are a lot of sports car enthusiasts here and the beautiful fall weather often attracts groups coming through Town headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway or the Tail of the Dragon.  I slowed to admired them and saw the name on one - a McLaren.

I looked these cars up on the internet when I returned (where I found this photo) and discovered that the starting price was $200,000.  So I was looking at over a million dollars worth of automobiles preparing for a nice fall drive, cups of fresh coffee in their cup-holders.  Many people in this country are not doing well economically these days, but some can still afford to drive cars like these.

As I ran down Main Street, traffic increased, a steady stream coming up the Franklin Road.  I realized that I did not want to be around this kind of traffic, so I circled back and found some quiet roads, Chestnut and Fifth Street.  It was early, but a few walkers were already out.  It was another beautiful day for running, a little cooler than Monday but still comfortable, and I completed six miles, including a couple of 400-meter intervals, which I had not done in a month.  I could hear the roar of leaf-blowers everywhere around Town.

After lunch, I tackled the massive amount of leaves which have now fallen onto the driveway, dry enough to rake at this point.  This is what happens to those leaves:  I rake them up into a big pile, run the lawnmower over them to shred them, then pile them on a tarp.

Then I carry the leaves to our compost bins, which I constructed several years ago not far from our garden shed.  There they will sit, usually shrinking in half over the winter through decomposition, to be taken in the spring by wheelbarrow and spread on the garden beds below the house.

It's a lot of work, but compost from these leaves has improved our garden beds over the years.  And on a day like this I didn't mind it.  I would stop from time to time to breathe deeply that wonderful musky fragrance of fallen leaves, the only sounds a few afternoon birds singing high above and my rake gently scratching the pavement.

Yes, I am perhaps the only person in Macon County who actually uses a rake, not a leaf-blower, for this enjoyable job every year!