Check out what I drove around all day.

[Jess from VA]

It's not as much fun as you'd think.  

I have a love hate thing with this monster.  Nothing picks up leaves better (270cc air cooled Honda) and it has a forward and reverse, but it will jerk your arms out of the sockets and always makes me sore.  And if you wait for the bag to get full, you'll herniate a disk lifting it up into the big dumper.  

I already cleaned the whole yard twice this week, but we had rain and high winds, and half the leaves fell last night.  All my dumpers are full, and there's still more to pic up.  



I start with this first.

[Jess from VA]

92 looks and not one reply.  Oh well. 

[Rams]

92 looks and not one reply.  Oh well. 

This reminds me of that four letter word that starts with W and ends with K.   

Thankfully, I don't want or need one of those.

Rams

[Serk]

I like to pretend like I'm a hippie that leaves the leaves in his yard to help the environment or something, but truth be told... I'm just lazy...

[Rams]

I like to pretend like I'm a hippie that leaves the leaves in his yard to help the environment or something, but truth be told... I'm just lazy...

Mine wait on me to mow.  Chop them up.   But then I don't have those monster oaks Jess has.   We all have challenges in life based on the decisions we've made.   Jess likes his trees, but there's always a price to pay. 

Rams

[Valker]

92 looks and not one reply.  Oh well. 

Well, that sucks.   

[Jersey mike]

I had a neighbor at one time who lived behind me and he had a similar machine, a Snapper I believe, and his yard was always immaculate. That machine would do small sticks, leaves and all his acorns. Instead of a backpack blower he has one of those parking lot blowers that he wheeled around and it moved a ton of leaves too. Eventually they moved away and the yard went to crap.

[Jess from VA]

Mine wait on me to mow.  Chop them up.   But then I don't have those monster oaks Jess has.   We all have challenges in life based on the decisions we've made.   Jess likes his trees, but there's always a price to pay.  

Rams
[/quote]

I have mixed feeling about my big trees.  I'm not a tree hugger, but I do like the shade and help with AC in summers, and they are beautiful trees.  I recently paid over $4K to have the giant white oak in my front yard severely trimmed down.  And now that my backyard neighbor has given permission for work to be done in his backyard (because a great deal of those 2 other giant oaks in my back yard overhang his back yard), I'm probably going to bite the bullet and get them trimmed down too.  

I have neighbors that ask me why I don't just get them entirely removed.... 'Because that might run $10K per tree is why!!'  These things have 6/7 foot wide trunks on them, and after the tree is gone, it's a major mining operation to remove the stumps/roots.  And refill the big holes with good soil.  So I'm only reducing, not removing.  

I'm kicking myself for not getting this done years ago when I had a good job with good pay.  Retirement is GREAT, but the pay sucks.  



 

[Jess from VA]

92 looks and not one reply.  Oh well. 

Well, that sucks.   

A pun, my word.    

[Black Dog]

I've got a Cyclone Rake. Attaches to my ZT lawn mower.

Has a separate engine and works very well! You are correct when it comes to dumping a full bag!

Still waiting for the big Hickory tree to drop the rest of it's leaves (usually happens about a month after the first real snow fall  )

Black Dog

[old2soon]

     My former neighbor had a maple tree with some severe overhang in my yard. He did give me Permission to trim from my side which I did accomplish. At that time an across the street neighbor had a fire pit and removed all the wood I had drug out front fer pickup! This new to me senior housing dealy have folks fer all the outside work Year Round and I also call them should I need a lightbulb replaced!  And I've given away my lawnmower and weed wacker couple years back as I'd hired a lawn service for the grass cutting and they did a Reall Good job of it cut grass weed wack and use the leaf blower to clean up the front and rear porch and the front sidewalk and main entrance to the garage! $25.00 each time usually twice a month!  RIDE SAFE.

[Jess from VA]

I've got a Cyclone Rake. Attaches to my ZT lawn mower.

Very nice.  And you get to sit down to do the work.   

[Rams]

Jess,
I wasn't knocking your choices, they are just different than I would have gone with.   I don't hate trees either but, don't want anything that close to my home and really don't care what my neighbors think about my trees.     Have chainsaw, will travel.   

Rams

[Jess from VA]

Jess,
I wasn't knocking your choices, they are just different than I would have gone with.   I don't hate trees either but, don't want anything that close to my home and really don't care what my neighbors think about my trees.     Have chainsaw, will travel.   

Rams

Well Ron, I bought the house for the house and location, not for the trees.  As a 1st (and only) time home buyer, I made a bunch of mistakes.  I got out of USAF in Riverside CA and had a job a block behind the Whitehouse in DC and needed to get right to work.  The wife and I drove cross country and were in a motel, and I was in a big hurry.  My dad said don't be in a hurry, and I should have listened to him. 

Oaks are generally healthy and mine definitely are, and though old dead limbs can come down, none are over the house. 

When I told my mom about this, she said my brother would just drop them from the bottom.  That cannot be done as they absolutely could fall on my house, or a neighbor's house, or take out the power lines for the neighborhood.  My brother has 40 acres and has cut down many trees building grass runways for his single seat aircraft.  And has a monster hi-lo lift he just slides under the fallen trees and motors them whole over to the sides of the runway.  Maybe hundreds.

[Hook#3287]

Decades ago while power washing some equipment in my yard, I accidently hit a pile of leaves and watched all of them wash away.

That fall I power washed my complete yard, pushing the leaves into the tree areas that surround my property.  Removal is not required.

Did that for years and it worked great. Moved leaves and watered the lawn.  Multitasking

I acquired a company that needed these.  The company is gone but I keep them.

The Billy Goat rests comfortably for 364 days a year, then steps out for about 2-3 hours, does it's thing and back to hibernating.  It's self propelled and it's a monster. 11hp Subaru motor.

I use the Redmax to dry my bikes after washes.

[Rams]

Understood. When I got out of the military, I made a similar mistake.   Took a job in Memphis, thought I knew more than I actually did.   Although the home was very nice and trees were not an issue, I was directly south of Memphis International.   We had viewed that home several time during the day, mid-morning and never heard much overhead traffic.   Didn't realize that FedEx had one heck of a lot of take offs and landing early mornings and evenings.  

Reference trees near the home, if a tree can be toppled due to winds/storms and land on a home, that tree is too close to the house for me.    Every home has it's own issues that will often be missed by the buyer and a home inspector.   The one I'm now in is included in that.

Rams

The Billy Goat rests comfortably for 364 days a year, then steps out for about 2-3 hours, does it's thing and back to hibernating.  It's self propelled and it's a monster. 11hp Subaru motor.

Not real sure what I'd do with it for legitimate uses but, I can see having one of those as a blast to have.   But, I've already kept too many things I no longer need.   Storage space (especially floor space) is too important with the limited space I have for such things.   I try to hang as much as possible on a wall or overhead.   Pretty sure the "Monster" would be a challenge getting off the floor.  

I know a gent who lives in Brown County Indiana who uses a PTO powered blower similar to yours mounted behind his tractor.   He told me he bought the blower at an auction.   It was previously used by a asphalt paving company to blow debri off of pavement.   I haven't seen it work but, I can easily imagine how it would blow leaves off his property. 

Rams

[Hook#3287]

Ha, Rams, your right, I've got way to much "stuff" I should get rid of, starting with 3-4 Motorcycles 

But for 2-3 hours, once a year, I REALLY NEED the Billy Goat.

I probably could sell it a pay for someone to do the leaves for many years, but I don't want anyone on my property I'm not sharing a adult beverage with.

[Jess from VA]

Decades ago while power washing some equipment in my yard, I accidently hit a pile of leaves and watched all of them wash away.

That fall I power washed my complete yard, pushing the leaves into the tree areas that surround my property.  Removal is not required.

Did that for years and it worked great. Moved leaves and watered the lawn.  Multitasking

I acquired a company that needed these.  The company is gone but I keep them.

The Billy Goat rests comfortably for 364 days a year, then steps out for about 2-3 hours, does it's thing and back to hibernating.  It's self propelled and it's a monster. 11hp Subaru motor.

I use the Redmax to dry my bikes after washes.

The house I grew up in had a bunch of huge oaks too.  We dumped/blew all the leaves in the lake.  

I have a power washer (and hose) and they move leaves, but it's harder picking them up wet than dry, and I have to pick them up (and not in the mud).  

The neighbors frown on me blowing them into their yards (and I'm pretty sure it would lead to violence). 

My Little Wonder (like your Billy Goat) also sits in the back of my shed (taking up room), most of the time.  I hadn't used it in a couple years.  Only need it when the leaves all come down at once.  Mine is rope pull start, and I was pulling my arm off getting it started the other day until I remembered the little on-off switch on the opposite side of all the other controls.    

8 full dumpers in 2 days.  The worst is over, but there will be more work before it's finished.  A strange recurring fact is that one of my two giant oaks in the backyard is nearly bare, and the other is bright red leaves and mostly still on the tree and may not all come down till Christmas.  Every year.

[Jess from VA]

Took a job in Memphis, thought I knew more than I actually did.   Although the home was very nice and trees were not an issue, I was directly south of Memphis International.   We had viewed that home several time during the day, mid-morning and never heard much overhead traffic.   Didn't realize that FedEx had one heck of a lot of take offs and landing early mornings and evenings. 


My home is right in the landing glide path for Regan National Airport.  Modern airliners are fairly quiet (unlike military multiengine jets), but all those planes are dirtied up with full flaps slowing down, so they still make a lot of noise.  I'm used to it after 35 years, and it reminds me of my days living on USAF flightlines.  All day every day, but nights aren't' bad.

[scooperhsd]

I'm not sure which is worse - airplane noise or RAILROAD YARD noise. We live just across the street from BNSF rail yard, and there is noise coming from that practically 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

When we lived in Reston VA, our condo was under the flight path when the jets were going from north runway to south (or vice versa). And the perm BOQ at NAS Pensacola  - not much night traffic, but training days -  and when tactical jets came in / departed - I swear I never heard ANYTHING louder than an A6 Intruder (not even a fighter in afterburner could compare).

[RP#62]

When we lived in the keys, we were under the approach path for NAS Boca Chica.  There were RA5C Vigilante squadrons there at the time (my dad was in one of them).  The RA5C was designed as a nuke bomber but that didn't work out so it became a recky bird.  It had boundry layer control - i.e. it would route bleed air from the engines over the flaps to lower the landing speed.  Unfortunately, this made it howl like a banshee.  The dogs could hear it coming before we could and they'd start howling as well.  I think they were louder or at least as loud as the phantoms.

RP

[Rams]

My son has a bunch of large (leaf baring) tree and several pine trees.   He already has the Stihl blower shown previously.   That sucker produces a huge amount of air volume and velocity.   Yesterday, he brought home a leaf vacuum on a small trailer his Chief gave him.   The motor doesn't run.   He'll tow it behind his big Bad Boy mower (I assume) or one of his other toys.

Well, he loves working on things like this.   While I don't hate trees, I also am not a tree hugger.   This could be interesting to watch.   I guess he'll mow his 3-4 acres to chop up those leaves then vacuum them up but never having done this kind of thing.   I really have no idea.

Rams

[Jess from VA]

Ron, a lawn vacuum works much better on whole leaves than mowed/chopped up leaves and dust powder (ah choo).

Since it's my thread, I can drift it if I want.

I have an old Carhartt Detroit jacket I've worn for cool/cold yard work, oil changes, etc for 30 years or more.

I only like waist length coats for any work;  fingertip length just gets in the way and caught on things.    

It's frayed, stained, nearly colorless and a perfect fit, but the zipper has just about given up for good.

I've read that new Carhartt stuff is not what it used to be and went down to Lowes to look them over, and they're right.  They had like 27 XLs and XXLs, but only 2 mediums, so I got one.  They don't call it the Detroit jacket anymore, but that's what it is.  It's a pretty good fit, and it's in the washer now in an attempt to remove some of the new stiffness.

I'll keep using the old favorite so long as the zipper keeps working.

My mom was an excellent seamstress on sewing machines and sewed in new KYY zippers for me many times in my life.  But she'll be 96 in a few days and think she's given up sewing now.

$120.  

This used to be work wear, but I think it's become yuppie wear.  


 

[Rams]

Ron, a lawn vacuum works much better on whole leaves than mowed/chopped up leaves and dust powder (ah choo).
 

As I previously mentioned, I have absolutely no experience with this kind of exercise.   I've always either mowed them and let them turn back into soil or, piled them up and burnt them.   Will let my son what you said.

Rams

[Jess from VA]

So today was going to be low 60s and the warmest day left in the extended forecast, and least traffic of the week is Sunday.  So I got out the driveway at 10AM and put in a great 4 hours.

But the wind was 20-25 constant, and gusting to Holy Sh!t.  And out West where I ride is elevated and some roads were like a wind tunnel.  I'd just lean forward and get below the Interstate fairing and windshield, both to protect my eyes, and to take the blowing off my body.  It may have been 60, but the wind chill required full leathers, and I had to stop and add a fleece pullover to stay warm.   High winds make the Interstate into a big sailboat.  I had to stop for a slow train full of containers out in nowhere, and turned the bike off and sat there on the kickstand, and the wind tried to blow the bike over.  At least it was a beautiful sunny day.  

Got home and got the 600 Stihl blower going and blew the million leaves off off the house and fence, and made piles (to scoop by hand) and rows (to use my big sucking machine on) tomorrow. The fun never stops.  

Now if my Detroit Lions can beat the Philly Eagles tonight it will have been a perfect day.