This post is contributed by Barnaby Porter from his archives. Read the previous post here.

If you live in a place where there’s lots of wind, you shouldn’t have to worry much about raking leaves. But, still, people do… worry about them. It’s a popular fetish to do something about autumn leaves once they land on the ground. They are a problem in people’s minds.

This time of year, great big split-bamboo rakes stand sentry in front of the stores, keeping company with legions of yard carts and plastic bags and every contrivance known that can in any way assist in the annual campaign to haul off the problem of the leaves. Why not? It’s good business. If the populace wants to freak out over such a thing, why not fan the flames?

Personally, I find fallen leaves not much of a problem at all, other than those that blow into the barn or lodge themselves in the garden beds. The rest can blow away to anywhere they want. I simply mow the lawn as usual with my lawnmower in “mulch” mode, and they more or less disappear as my big machine grinds them up into confetti. It’s a little messy for a brief time, but the wind and the rain and the forces of natural decomposition make miraculously short work of the residue.

Really, people go to so much trouble, and where does it get them? Take my father for example. When we were kids, I remember how every fall he spent long hours raking, raking, raking. Our yard was big, and it was surrounded by a great canopy of huge sugar maples, a large horse chestnut, a honey locust and a giant sycamore tree that woodpeckers nested in. Collectively, they loosed a golden-orange blizzard onto the lawn – wonderful, rustling leaves, ankle-deep, that smelled like… what?… like Mother Earth.

Dad raked them into windrows. He raked them into mounds. And he raked them into the gutter at the side of the street and set them on fire. (Actually, I rather liked helping with that part as I was something of a pyromaniac back then.) The acrid odor of burning leaves was a real autumn smell in those times.

Best of all, Dad always raked huge quantities of leaves into giant piles that were taller than we were, and then something or other would call him away from his task, and we kids were left with a yard full of interesting opportunities. It shouldn’t take too much guessing to know what happened next.

Whooping and hollering, we ran as fast as we could, leaped into the air and dove headfirst into the biggest pile of them all. Down in the bowels of the pile, we rolled and wrestled, stuffed leaves down each other’s shirts and did everything we could think of to do with leaves.

Then we attacked the next pile, and the third, and before you could say “black bug’s blood” three times, fast, the entire yard was full of leaves again just the way nature meant it to be. I don’t recall ever getting into trouble for our shenanigans, and I don’t remember that all those leaves ever caused a particular problem with the lawn or anything else. I just remember my father was the only one in the family who worried about them, while the rest of us had the time of our lives.

Artist and author Barnaby Porter has had a varied career in marine research, aquaculture, and woodworking, among others. Most recently he partnered with his wife Susan as co-owners of the Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe in downtown Damariscotta. In October 2021, Barnaby completed his tenure on Coastal Rivers’ Board of Trustees after six years of service.