Most of the leaves are now off of the trees in the Robson Valley. Their main job of generating food for the tree is over and they now will begin their second job, that of feeding the unseen insects, bacteria, and fungi that will breakdown the nutrients they possess and redistribute them back into the soil for their mother tree and other plants. It is one of those natural cycles that keep everything going.
I hate to see this cycle disrupted by people who rake up the leaves, bag them, and then ship them off to some unknown trash heap. Then next year many of these same people will buy fertilizer for their lawn--what stupidity.
I gather up a lot of the leaves that fall on my lawn and put them into the garden where I rototill them into the soil. Other leaves that fall on my lawn are chewed up into little pieces by my lawn mower, and are left to quickly decompose so that they put nutrients into the lawn. Pete, the local gardening guru makes a pile of leaves, then props up a piece of plywood beside the pile, runs his lawn mower over the leaves several time, blowing the pieces agains the plywood, so he can easily gather them up and use them in the garden or compost pile.
Since childhood I have always enjoyed walking over leaves and hearing them crunch and crackle as I walk. It’s amazing how quickly the leaves, now sitting on our trail, turn into soil.
You can take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant.ca
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