Rollerball

We're being all Green like, hardly ever use our car, only buy groceries on the bicycles, we recycle and pay $60 a year to a yard waste company to take a large bin of yard waste each week.

Our place sits on three lots, the house and yard on two and a third behind us that is all wooded, it goes down a hill to a stream, besides a small path it hasn't been developed at all.

So, here we are being all good about our yard waste, (and 15 lrg oaks can put out a lot of it), meanwhile all our neighbors are dumping theirs down the hill in our woods.

What are you supposed to do? Be a jerk and complain? They all do it and have been doing it for years before we bought the place. Its like a neighborhood tradition, they even scolded me for NOT doing it. What really bugs me is that the city will pick up the leaves and crap if you just pile them near the road in the fall. But the edge of the woods is closer.

We talked about maybe developing that land, you couldn't do much with it because of the steep hill and stream that floods the bottom, and we probably never will, but this bugs me just the same.

W.M.DEEEZ

Oak leaves take forever to decompose, but I would think that the leaves make for some fertile soil?

Is it just leaves that they're dumping? I compost mine every year, and the ones that won't fit in my bin, I dump over a bank across the road.

Those have made rich soil, with a plethora of earthworms.

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Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

gonzo

Check into whether the land has been declared wetlands by the government. You'd be surprised how many areas have and nobody knows it. If it hasn't been declared you might consider it. Folks can't go a dumping on wetlands. *G* I had an area diagonally across the street from me in Fl. that I found out was wetlands, and it afforded me some good backup when I was trying to stop folks from dumping there and hacking on the flora. Just a thought...

anhailla

My dad actually had the practice of driving his leaves (in cheap garbage bags, in an expensive convertible) to a wooded area near his house...because the bags required by the city are so expensive. He dumps them out and then throws away the bags.

We objected every year..but he stated it was a matter of "principle" lol

we have nicknamed this practice "taking the leaves for a ride" in honor of his Italian heritage.

It was a harmless joke...until the police surrounded him once after they discovered a body near by

he returned home safe and exonerated, but a little pale from his brush with the law...apparently the officers found his story a little difficult to believe..he had to produce his pile of leaves. Eventually they realized that he was decidely not a criminal, just cheap.

I can relate to you that upon learning of the tale... that my mother and I were in physical PAIN from laughing so hard...for days.

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...either I go, or that wallpaper does.

Oscar Wilde

jdanton

I kind of miss the days when it was legal to burn them. I remember my grandfather making a big pile in his back yard and setting it on fire.

Smoke always seemed to blow in my direction.

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Author: Memoirs of a Sleepless Mind, a book you CAN judge by its cover.

aloysious

Me too. The smell of burning leaves was good.

Rollerball

That story sounded strange until I got to the "Italian heritage" part, then it made perfect sense. My mother's side is Italian and I've got a half dozen uncles I could see driving leaves around, as a matter of "principle". Gotta love'm

anhailla

you got it

__________________
...either I go, or that wallpaper does.

Oscar Wilde

anhailla

you should see my father on "bring your own bowl/for free popcorn" night at the local movie theater. the bowl is the size of a small moon crater....and it's neon orange...and he makes my 92 old/grandmother carry it...

apparently he is too masculine for an orange bowl.

__________________
...either I go, or that wallpaper does.

Oscar Wilde

michelemichele

Oh man. What can I say but... Oh man...
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We leave the leaves as they are & hope this is good for the ground. I don't like rakes.

My turn to bitch & ask advice. We have great recycling program (plastic, cans, glass, paper, cardboard, organic waste) and the reduction in actual garbage is amazing, even in our small household. Most residents participate, but our next door neighbours can't be bothered: irritating. Once in a while a garbage bag appears with ours: also irritating. They wouldn't keep going over the two-bag limit if they tried recycling, duh.

In the last couple of weeks, they've ignored the fact that we were at our own limit (I'm clearing the basement out), and put their shit with ours anyway. It wouldn't have been a major disaster had the city stuck to the rules & left the garbage as they usually do when people go over their limit, but holy ignoranus.

So... I'm wondering if I should call the city and ask them to drop a couple of bins off at their address. It'd be a discrete hint, better than going over there to tell them to stop putting their crap with ours. That's my last resort.

Bad idea? Good? So/so?

@..@

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I will hide & you will hide & we will hide together here
Underneath the bunkers in a row
I have water, I have rum
Wait for dawn & dawn shall come
Underneath the bunkers in a row- R.E.M.