Ooh! Ooh! Four more bags of finely shredded leaves came home with me tonight. :O)

2 bags shredded (35 gal bags) lovley yellow leaves from a norway maple today---straight into the CP with the pumpkins (12) and UCG (5 bags)

O.K. Please, don't be too envious! A buddy of my husband's needed a place to store his trailer (7' X 12' w/ 2' sides) and we can utilize it all we want. Last Thursday I made a run after work through a local neighborhood, and another run the next morning before the trash guys came through. I stopped counting at 200 bags, some whole leaves, some shredded. ;-) Aren't you jealous now?! I have to add that we moved to our new old house two years ago and I'm still trying to build up the hard-packed clay I inherited, so I just can't get too many leaves!! I spied quite a pile of bags next to a house near our election hall tonight... May have to pop by there tomorrow. ;)

tiffy, where are you finding these bags of already shredded leaves? How nice!

My neighbor has only one person who is nice enough (some would say foolish, but not me) to finely shred his leaves AND pitch them. But this year he must have died, moved, broken his shredder, or whatever.

Some folks (men) love to use their machinery such as shredders, even if they pitch the leaves after shredding them.

As a annual user of 200-400 bags of neighbors leaves, I check out any likely looking paper bags out by the curb. If you see someone with a shredder, leaves, and plastic trash cans; stop and ask if they would be willing to put the shredded material in paper bags you would provide. Any anyone who recyles leaves has lots of used bags.

I've GOT to get my vac shredder fixed and go roaming. There is a vacant house in my neighborhood and the leaves are REALLY piling up over there. I'm going to put effort into fixing it, or begging someone to fix it this weekend.

There are at least 10 bags over there waiting for me to gather. I can't bear letting them lay there.

I'm really missing out! You guys are making me so jealous. STILL haven't gotten another load from the trash people and haven't been able to find the guy again. I'm not sure if the town admin knows they do that for me, so I haven't wanted to call and blow it/get someone in trouble. The head of public works is .. umm.. a jerk. The type that trolls on Saturdays to catch people having yard sales without a permit... so I'm scared that if I call and he catches wind of someone doing something without his approval, heads will roll.

The worst is a person who has a little bit of power and knows that's all he will ever have.

Liz, Silly folks eh? I find them on my way home. Such nice people to be shredding their leaves!

Got another 15 bags of - yes! - shredded leaves yesterday into the little car. Total so far is 41 bags of shredded leaves.

Oh, and DH brought home 5 beautiful bales of hay this week. Nice!!

Gold mine---helped a neighbor and ended up getting 20 bags shredded from his little pile. Hope have enough to make it through the winter......lol (my CP is full!)

I scored 14 bags yesterday, and made a fool of myself in the process.

I knocked on the door of the home to make sure it was okay to take the bagged leaves they had. I *thought* I heard a man inside say "it's open!".. could have sworn that's what he said. So I stood there for a couple seconds debating about whether to open the door of a stranger's home, then I thought about the leaves and just did it.

A small child came to the door after I opened it and his mother right behind him.. looking at me like ummm what the heck do you think you're doing? I said.. "oh.. wow.. I thought he said 'it's open', is that not what he said?" She said, "No. That's not what he said."

I apologized over and over and told her I would never dream of opening her door uninvited. I swear he yelled for me to come on in... which I thought was odd at the time, but I did it anyway.

I don't even know these people.. never seen them before in my life. Now I'm a known leaf lunatic in these parts.. lock your doors if you've got bagged leaves outside!!!

Could have died, but I sheepishly asked her if I could have the leaves. She said yeah and I scurried away as fast as I could with the 14 bags.

The delema of it all.........Filled the CP last night and put it to bed. Filled a second one for leaf mold for next spring. Have 14 bags shredded sitting there (35 gal) waiting for next spring, and another neighbor has 12 bags sitting there infront of their house. Do I or don't I, that is the question...........

Oh you do, you do. There's got to be somewhere to stash them.

the enabler

I did-------the gnomes made me do it---by the way gnomey, they are doing fine up here, having a ball~

d

D, I'm glad you are enjoying my workforce. Make sure they have warm hats and jackets please!

They are doing just fine----I'm following "Secrets of the Gnomes", good book!!! Anyone else read this book?

OK, I've lost count and there's a snowstorm moving in tonight so don't ask me to go out there and count tomorrow. I do know that I did not expect to score some bales of hay/straw this year but ended up with 7 so that's not bad.

Under the veranda is full of leaves and there's a pile of them at the end of the driveway, not to mention the stash behind the 4 compost bins. Funny, I still feel the need for more...

dlpasti,

I would have questioned your composting sanity had you not adopted those 12 bags in front of your neighbour's place. :O)

Some of my neighbors did their EOS clipping of the lawns before they put their mowers away. . . .a nice mix of grass and shredded leaves. The 10 bags I collected steamed up all my van windows before I got a chance to unload them.

They all got dumped on my big pile but since my hoses are disconnected, I hope the rain or snow will moisturize them enuf to get them working.

I just scored a dumptruck full of bagged leaves from the town. :) I'm so excited. It seems like most of them are already shredded too! How lucky is that? I have to get a picture of the pile before I put a big dent in it. It's about a car and a half in width, two car lengths long and about as tall as a car. I'm loving it. I was working on debagging today but it started to rain, so I'll have to resume as soon as it quits.

I got about 3 cubic yards of finely shredded leaves with some grass and a cheap 50lb bag of alfalfa cubes steaming away in my bin. If I had enough space I would just ask the city for their leaves, but alas I'm out of room. The leafvack and trailer is parked about 1 block from my house completely full of finely shredded leaves. It must have about 45 cu/yards in it. Too bad my parents house is too far away for them to deliver. They would love to have them and I could "borrow" it when it's finished.

I live in a neighborhood of mature trees and never complain when nabe's leaves fall into my yard. I blow them into rows with my riding mower, haul them into the backyard using a big tarp, and then shred them up with my trusty leaf blower. It came with a little 3'x 2' weenie bag. That didn't last long as I was always emptying it. So I sewed up a bedsheet and now I can shred some serious stuff. I get almost 1/2 cu/yard each bag. This year I got almost 15 bags this year due to a long dry fall that encouraged me to rustle stuff from adjoining properties... heh. Never been chased off yet! ;-)
Kris
P.S. I usually hang out in the Harvest forum, but checked this one out today and you folks sound like my kinda people... Compost rules!

{{gwi:314063}}

"So I sewed up a bedsheet..."

Cool idea! But please tell me you don't put it back on the bed once leaf season is over!

Seriously, how heavy does it get? Do you have like a child huffing it around the yard whilst you vac away?

Lloyd

The only bed it ever sees are the garden type. ;-)
No one but me huffing it around and I won't see my 50s again... *woof*
This is really only manageable when the leaves are quite dry. And I never lift it, only drag. When the bag is full, I disconnect it from the blower and drag it to wherever I'm mulching or making a pile to save for next spring. The whole front end of the bag opens up, so I can shake out what I want where I want it. And I don't vac the leaves. I rake the mowed rows onto a tarp and then pull the tarp to the 'shred' area with the mower.
I find that as I get older, the more I have to resort to crazy (uh, deviously clever) ideas.
Kris

{{gwi:314064}}

Ah, I see.

One of my favorite sayings that describes me to a "T", "laziness breeds efficiency".

You could give the kids a ride around the yard on that tarp/tractor combo! That'd be fun!

Lloyd

Guess I *could* rent some kids, but the leaves give me enough grief as it is.... ;-)

Gee, Lloyd. I just checked out your Flickr pics. You certainly can NOT cop to 'lazy' in any way!

Ya, and I have a regular job too! (shift worker).

But seriously, laziness does make me more efficient, I usually discover the easiest way to do something I don't like to do is by being lazy about it. If it involves drinking beer and thinking about how to solve a problem, BONUS!

Lloyd

Wow Kris, I need your bedsheet pattern! Mt vac/shredder thing is fixed and I haven't caught any squirrels with it yet, so it's still working. How do you open/close the end? Brilliant idea btw.

Simple bedsheet sack, gnomey. I used a twin bed sheet, folded it over, sewed shut the back side, the long side and left open the 'front' side. To attach it to the blower, I use a little bungee to wrap the top of the open side to the discharge hole. Then I roll closed the rest of the side and hold it closed with 6 clamps. I know when the bag is full because usually one of the clamps blow off and leaves start coming out. Then I remove the bungee, leave the clamps until I drag the sack where I'm going, unclamp it all and dump out the shreds. But this coming summer I'm going to try sewing on velcro where the clamps go that whole edge and see if that will hold strong enough so I don't have to use the clamps. I will have to leave enough non-velcroed sheet, though, so the bungee will will be tight enough around the discharge. Hope it works for you. Helps me a ton around here. :-)
Kris

Kris-------the velcro will work fantastic at first, then it will get the leaf garbage stuck in it and it will cease to funciton. You have an old coat? Recycle the zipper on your leaf bag, it'll work much better in the long run for you.

Say, that IS good idea! I no longer have the original leaf bag/orig zipper (hmmm or do I? maybe back in the shed), but I can always buy a heavy-duty zipper and sew it in. Thanks for the tip! :-)
Kris
P.S. As for the old coat...I'm still wearing it. ;-)

kid's coat, hubbies, neighbors, anyone's that you can get your hands on,,,,,,,,,,,lol I hear that Lloyd doesn't like to go out once it gets cold? ( hi Lloyd---just couldn't resist)

Hey wait a minute...picking on the poor Canadian that has to live up here on the bald frozen tundra just isn't fair cricket!

It's not that I don't like to go outside (well, it is really, but I don't want to admit that I'm a sissy), it's just that the dang polar bears get real hungry at this time of year. At my age I'm just not as fast as I used to be. And, everyone that I used to out for walks with, just aren't around anymore. You see, I learned early on it's not that you had to run fast when being chased by a polar bear, it's just that you had to run a bit faster than the slowest guy. (it also slows them down a touch more if ya trip 'em).

Just kidding, we don't have polar bears in southern MB, they are all up by Churchill. But it is going down to -23C tonight and I have to go to work tomorrow.

I get a bit peeved when I hear of all youse guys still doing composting stuff. GRR!

And hey, if any of you ever make it up here to the tundra, we could go for a walk and I could show you around!

Lloyd

First I need to know just how fast can you run Lloyd? Must be sure that I'm not the slowest runner, although the polar bears are cute. Are they cuddly too?

Are they cuddly too?

Beats me, I've never been the slowest runner, the hockey stick I carry around is real good for tripping up the opponents...errr I mean, helping me to keep my balance while I jog. :)

Lloyd

You go ahead and jog---I'll drive------it's warmer, and I don't need a balance stick! lol

Ya but it is your thread so no one can yell at us! WooHoo!

Down to 12F last night here. And does it count that I was nearly trampled by a herd of deer at the bird feeder? I'd forgotten to bring the darn thing in for the night and when I went out into the dark to get it there were 8 deer at it and had it swinging like a pinata! I coulda used that hockey stick, Lloyd.
Kris

Who's yelling----I'm having fun, isn't that the idea of this joint?

Kris...(it's not Kringle by any chance is it??)

Are you sure it was deer??

Lloyd

Think you hit on something there Lloyd! Thats why Kris is still in the "old coat"! Yeah, they're deer, but no names were given. Dancer, Prancer, Donner, Blitzed, Commet, Cupid....Oh, and Rudy too! Kris changed the C to K just to throw us off! ;-)

oh no.. if Kris Kringle is on here I'm in trouble!

Hey, don't want to 'rein' on your parade, but this Kris isn't affiliated with the North Pole family. haha (You guys 'sleigh' me....)

Kris, for Kristmas my list of wishes is:
good compost thermometer
something fun to play with---oh, already got that, see line above
more leaves
more coffee grouds
world piece
ok, a lemon merange pie would be nice too!

Say, dl (can I call you dl? ;-) ) where are you on the planet that you got such a heat wave going? And what the heck are coffee grouds...they sound a little grouchy. *har*

IA reporting here and the front is through---the temp has dropped to 23 now.......supposed to start snowing here anytime now.........coffee grouds are what I have now, no N there cause I can't get them, starbucks refuses (by order of their DM) to keep them for anyone this time of year or allow anyone to pick them up. I don't drink icky brown water, so none here at home either.

Has anyone noticed that the time of your post isn't correct? Mine are always off by an hour, my 4:06 this am was actually done at 3:06,,,,,,,,,,,

Morning all

Just a few seconds before I have to run out to coach the kids and then off to work...

Quit ur whining! That ain't cold, this is cold!

Man I hope that worked, I linked the Fahrenheit page.

Lloyd

Hey dlpasti - about the timestamp. My guess is that the server where the forums are kept are located in EST timezone. The posts would have 'server' time on them, not the poster's local time.
Kris

I'd like a heavy duty paper shredder, in addition to the coal and switches, for Christmas please. My fingers cramp up when doing the stacks of catalogs.

{{gwi:314065}}

I debagged about 2/3 of these today. It's the second load the town has brought me. Many of these are finely shredded too...it makes me so happy when I grab a heavy one. I have a pile about the size of a car left and I feel anxious now, like I'm running low.

Doh!

I just realized the link to the weather up thread gives the current conditions, come summer, I'm gonna look like a doofus!

Go ahead and say it Karen....

Hey Gerri

I dare you to put a bow on one of those bags and put it under the Xmas tree. Add a tag...From Santa. (take pictures)

Lloyd

Lloyd, I've been trying to find time to take you up on that dare. I think it would be hysterical - to me of course, not to my sister who also lives here. The problem is that it's been raining on and off for like forever.. not complaining, we're in a severe drought and need it, but it is taking me longer to complete this dare. Stay tuned!