Worst. Invention. Ever.
 

The leafblower.

Look at this thing. It's a massive, gasoline-powered abomination designed to do the work of a push broom.

What's wrong with the broom? Sure, you have to do the pushing yourself, but on the other hand you don't have to lug around a 50-pound backpack. The old-fashioned broom works just fine, and doesn't burn gasoline (this is a finite resource, folks). The broom is also considerably less noisy--nobody is passing laws outlawing broom noise.

Maybe I thought I would get used to seeing landscape crews running leafblowers; but the fact is that I still marvel at the utter ridiculousness of this device every single time I see one.

To see a leafblower in action is to witness the world's laziest spectacle. Instead of using a broom to push grass clippings a few feet over, a gas-guzzling, giant hair dryer is lolligagged back and forth, pointed generally in the groundwardly direction. It's a wonder people don't fall asleep while operating these things.

I realize...maybe you have a leafblower, and love it. I would be interested to know how you can operate one of these things without feeling foolish.

Rarely seen here.
Perhaps because of the running costs.

I hate leaf blowers.

But I have to admit they are fast. Watching a skilled grounds keeper use a leaf blower to do in 5 minutes what would have taken me 1 hour with a rake is always impressive. It's a simple financial equation with a grounds keeping crew.

Homeowners are a different story though.

I don't know if they all do this, but ours works like a vacuum, too. Sucks the leaves up and chops them into smaller bits, so they are compacted and can be dumped into a compost pile. Sure is great when you have a big yard and lots of trees.

I thought it was a jet-pack. Speaking of jet-packs, you can buy one now. That's all we need, people who can barely drive floating around the city.

I have an electric model that is used quite a bit, if not as frequently as mrs lookout would prefer. You all may have big beautiful leaves that fall gracefully onto your nice green lawns just waiting for your rake, but that just isn't my reality. My trees discard more needle -ish type of leaves into my front yard which is covered in rock. (I chose the trees because they give great shade while needing little water) Raking is not an option. The blower will push the needles up out of the rocks and out into the street where I can easily sweep them up.

So there is a use that has nothing to do with being lazy.

For that you don't need a leaf blower - you need a flame thrower.

In fact, I don't think that there's any lawn task that can't be handled best with a flame thrower.

:::CBOL::: (chuckled briefly out loud)

Guess I shouldn't mention that your daughter pointed at the lawnman pictured above and said rather proudly "Papa" or the the fact that there happens to be a leaf blower in your garage????

Now coming to your defense the blower is our friends ... we borrowed it with the intention of using the reverse feature for making mulch out of our massive amounts of fallen leaves... and have failed to return the device. And Morgi pretty much thinks any picture of a man should be Papa.

BTW... dinner is going to be REALLY tasty... Morgi ate 3 bowls for lunch. Just a lil somethin' somethin' to look forward to after your long hard day of jacking around on the Celler... lol.

better keep your eye on the lawnboy dude.

Now that is funny! :lol:

IIRC the MythBusters used one to make a hovercraft. That's why.

OH, SNAP.

Just today, my lawn people came to mow my lawn, and I thought of this thread while they were blowing all the stupid crepe myrtle droppings off my back porch.

But then I was distracted by the fact that the blower guy was wearing a pimp hat--seriously, a big floppy brim with bright orange and yellow and black swirls all over. Minifob banged on the window yelling, "Hat! Hat!" at him. True story.

Beest and I were just discussing this yesterday on a swamp dock in LA. Hector was fishing, we were all hanging around, would have been blissfull if not for two girls trying to move some swamp weep off the road with leaf blowers. that stuff would have been shifted in 5 minutes with a rake.... thankfully, after almost an hour, they gave up for lunch...