Managing autumn

It goes without saying autumn brings an abundance of leaves.

I'm fortunate to work in a location with expansive and beautiful grounds. Yes, lots of concrete but graceful trees, lawns stretching forever, streams, shrubs etc.

Throughout autumn and winter the groundsmen (yes, they're all men) follow an organised programme of leaf sucking and blowing. The collected leaves are are carted away on a trailer towed behind a tractor and deposited into huge piles in the maintenance area.

After several years of rotting they've broken down into a beautiful mulch and soil. This is resued by the groundsmen around the university and staff can ask to take some too.

I've used a fine 3 year old vintage of mulch on my vegetable and flower gardens over summer. With our earthquake water restrictions it helped me maintain adequate soil moisture and growing conditions.

I thinking about this little cycle and all it's benefits as I returned to my desk from a meeting. I gestured to one of the groundsmen rounding up leaves with his blower. He obliged a skillful display of leaf blowing.

At the lunch point of today my wrist is limping but coping. Think I might keep computing for work only to help things along :-/