The Joy Of A Mindless Task
The other day Andrew and I spent some time raking the leaves on the front lawn.
I told Andrew how much I enjoyed doing this type of work now and then. I told him how much more I enjoyed watching him do it. Andrew, like most teenagers, didn’t enjoy it. He suggested we buy one of those leaf blowers.
I hate those leaf blowers! They are just another one of those things we have added at ever diminishing margin of consumer utility. With the creation of the leaf blower we have managed to add both air pollution and noise pollution into one small carry on your back package.
With a rake I can enjoy the fresh air. I got a little exercise. And with a mindless job like raking, I could chat with Andrew. Andrew being Andrew means that chatting took about 30 seconds of the total hour and a half we spent raking.
I enjoy feeling the sun on my back and just letting my mind wander. It is a way to be productive and contemplate your life at the same time.
I like watching the progress. I like seeing windrows of leaves across the lawn. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
I would get the same feeling when I was a teenager doing some farm work. Tillage work was like that. I could drive the tractor up and down the field for a few hours and think about life and the world. I had the pleasure of watching my progress as the soil was turned with each pass. One side sort of a gray brown and the other dark and moist.
Where I grew up we would never see a Seagull unless one started doing some field operation that turned the earth. Then immediately the field would be covered with Seagulls gorging on the worms that were turned up. I always wondered where they came from.
They would come in flocks of hundreds or maybe a thousand. They would land immediately behind the tractor and feast on the smorgasbord. I would reach the top end of the field and turn around and head back. The birds would stay and eat with the tractor approaching. At the last possible moment they would take off in huge cloud of birds. They would fly just high enough to escape the tractor and then again light immediately behind to a freshly laid table.
November 28th, 2008 at 7:31 am
No leaf blower here either, just good old fashioned elbow grease
Happy friday!
November 28th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Well you have certainly glamorized leaf-raking- a task that I avoid till it cannot be avoided… But seriously, I totally relate to how one can really reflect on life while doing things by rote…
Nice post!
November 28th, 2008 at 9:16 am
One of my pet peeves is people who use leaf blowers to blow leaves off their lawn and out into the street. I just don’t understand their thinking on that one.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Oh fun. We paid some guy $60 to do our yard last weekend and he sorta sucked. We should have done it ourselves.
Thanks for visiting my blog and yes, that totally happened! If it even slightly resembled the Virgin Mary, I definitely would have found a way to sell it on ebay. It could have been baked into meringue, bowl and all, I guess. It would be worth $30,000 minimum, don’t you think? I was looking at the grilled cheese with Mary this morning and I’m sure I would have eaten it without even seeing the face. My egg whites were way more obvious.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Twice now I have forgotten to fill in my name/email and lost my comment. So now all I will say is hello and later.
November 28th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Our complex hires someone to come in with leaf blowers once a week and clear our yards and it is SO noisy. I hate them too. (The leaf blowers, not the people). I tend to agree with you on items such as leaf blowers, lawn mowers and snow blowers. I like the quiet ones the best.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Everyone around here uses leaf blowers…..so annoying, plus the fact that every single day in the summer someone is mowing their lawn. So, the noise never stops. I put my iPod on and mow and rake to music…
I think it goes along with vacuuming and doing laundry it doesn’t take a lot of thinking, therefore I can think about other things!!
December 1st, 2008 at 7:39 am
Carey: I hate the constant noise in the summer from lawn mowers and other yard machinery. I have often thought we should pass an ordinance that forbids any engine powered lawn work on one Saturday and one Sunday each month. Just two days in the month of peace and quiet that is all I want. Is it too much to ask?