Or: “Begun, the leaf blower wars have.” – Yoda, 2009, somewhere in the Degobah system when the live oaks awaken

While I have noted repeatedly that this blog is proudly unsullied by corporate sponsors, I’m happy to report that we do offer limited sponsorships to certain entities or concepts that prove worthy.

Today’s post is presented by our dear, humble friends RAKE and TARP.

Though I’ve lived in the south for 20+ years, I’m still somewhat surprised each spring when live oaks start dropping their leaves. I happen to be surrounded by oak miscreants so everything is covered in leaves from late February through early April.

I’ve read that trees can share resources and will even favor relatives via underground mycorrhizal networks, and I think the oak family around my house uses that network to plot against me. Rather than six or seven trees dropping their leaves all at once, they time it in the most aggravating fashion. One or two will let loose and then there will be a pause for several days. I’ll wait and wait, get annoyed, rake up the leaves, and then one or two more will immediately start dropping their leaves. We go through three or four cycles of this, me shaking my fist at the canopy, the trees deliberately dropping more leaves and then adding pollen blizzards and eventually the little squiggly catkins that get everywhere, even infiltrating the house.

Most people around me favor gas or battery powered blowers for leaf management, and neighbors on both sides will spend anywhere from 2-3 hours walking back and forth across their postage stamp lawns, blasting leaves to and fro. Everyone’s houses are pretty close together, so often this means a leaf blower-wielding person walking up and down between the houses relentlessly pushing a leaf twenty yards one way, and then twenty yards another way.

This drives me up the wall for two reasons: 1) the sound is horrible and it sets off a fight or flight sensation in my brain that makes me want to jab pencils in my ears, and 2) our friends RAKE and TARP up there can be used to complete this task in a much more efficient, cheaper, and quieter way.

I know this because here at RADIOFREEBEAUFORT we are nothing if not data-driven, and I’ve timed Team Leaf Blower, and I’ve timed Team Rake & Tarp, and I can say with certainty that I can rake and clear every area around my house in less than an hour. All a casual passer-by would hear is the soothing swish, swish, swish of my rake, along with the chirping of birds and the occasional deafening roar of an F-35.

Our dedicated sponsor, TARP, pictured above, has been a faithful helper since Hurricane Matthew hit Beaufort in 2016. This is its ninth season of service. It cost $20 at Home Depot, and you could probably find something similar for $10 or less at Harbor Freight. RAKE came to us three years ago by way of Tractor Supply Company and was also $20. Now, that rake price might seem a little high but the one flaw with the rake & tarp plan is that cheap rakes break easily and you might find yourself rake-less, which messes up the whole system.

Still, $40 along with an occasional rake replacement isn’t too bad compared to ~$100 for an entry level leaf blower (and who wants entry level power? better shell out $200+ for maximum suburban prestige). On top of that, you either have to manage fuel jugs and small engine maintenance, or deal with rechargeable batteries that die every 3-5 years.

Is this method easy? No, and I think that’s the main factor in its lack of popularity. After all, what would you rather do – (a) stand around, and occasionally wander aimlessly, while making a lot of noise, or (b) move your arms back and forth a lot, bend down, and pull things on a tarp in a relatively quiet fashion? Most people would choose (a) before you could even finish asking the question – because wandering around making a lot of noise is the quintessential American activity.

But I’ve been told we are a strong, resilient, bootstraps-yanking nation of patriotic heroes who believe in honest, hard work and callused hands and the satisfaction of a job well done. So I, along with sponsors RAKE and TARP, believe society can change. Throw down your leaf blowers, Beaufort, and any area with conspiratorial live oaks. We can work more efficiently. We can be quiet. We can jump off the consumerist treadmill that has us constantly searching for the latest shiny thing.

Maybe all the live oaks want is some peace and quiet. Maybe I’ll be rewarded when they see that I’m actually trying to scrape lightly over the surface of the Earth rather than blasting everything to kingdom come.

Or maybe my raking is irritating their mycorrhizal networks and I’m the real enemy here. Good thing I have a backup leaf blower.