I'd rather learn by watching others mistakes than repeating them myself. My buddy was using his riding mower to "mow" the leaves off the edge of his driveway & into his woods. Must have been some leaves trapped by the muffler low on the front. The leaves caught fire & his ride-on is now burned to a crisp... front tires, grill, headlights, hood motor... pretty well covers it. Well, he's all right, at least.He didn't call me to bring the marshmellows, Hershies & graham crackers...He seemed a bit shaken when he told me. I bet his fellow volunteer firefighters bust him something aweful.Russ

I'm doing the same thing... I go out back and mow the leaves into rows. The mow the rows till they are gone. I sometimes get hung up by weather and end up push huge piles of leaves around that are some what wet.

That's one benefit of me cutting most of the trees down in my yard. Much, much fewer leaves to deal with!!!!!! I'm in the "low spot on the high spot" here, so I do collect some water. When I moved in here 9+ years ago, I'd still have dew on my lawn at 2:00PM in the afternoon, and a sump pump running all the time. Since getting rid of most of the trees, I have a much nicer, and dryer lawn; less leaves to clean out of gutters, sump doesn't run much at all unless raining, and way less lawn care.The trees that I took down were crap too!! Box elder, soft maple, and 1 ash that was hit with the EAB. Those trees never should've been allowed to grow here IMHO.

Our backyard as a few days ago...

xcuse me gentlemen...but you want to cut through this beauty? Dorkweed if you tell me to cut down that giant maple tree and my troubles will be over, you're crazy. Can you imagine the hole it would leave in the bedrock here? Mike already ran the lawnmower through it all. Love Moparmom

Jesus! Do you gotta get a snowmobile to get through that?

wind, apparently, isn't a big deal in your neck of the woods! That is the most perfect bed of leaves I've ever seen! 2 weeks ago our nice little 'blow'... made a lot of things disappear! Still missing a couple of dogs and cats..:lol:mike, how close does the river get to your porch when the snow melts?

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mike, how close does the river get to your porch when the snow melts?

Ummm... Even in the 1997 flood we are a long way from the river but we had a triple water fall behind the house. That's what flood out the guest house last spring. http://forum.mopar1973man.com/threads/5621-Spring-runoff

the river is right beside the road... below your house? I just NOW saw the guard rail!! first time I looked, I figured the silvery grey was all water!! Ahem.. not too many rivers with guard rails down the center are there?? once again... bob typed before engaging brain!

  MoparMom said:

xcuse me gentlemen...but you want to cut through this beauty? Dorkweed if you tell me to cut down that giant maple tree and my troubles will be over, you're crazy. Can you imagine the hole it would leave in the bedrock here? Mike already ran the lawnmower through it all. Love Moparmom

Mom, if the trees that were in my yard looked like that one, I wouldn't have taken them down!!! That's a beauty for sure. The trees I took down were hanging over the electric service line into my house, growing next to the power lines in the back and/or dangerously close to my house. These trees were box elder, soft maple and ash..................all of which have a tendency to snap and break. Probably 75% of the trees I took down were hollow in the center, or bug infested. These were all "volunteer" trees that the prior owner let grow up. They were not attractive trees at all. All they did was keep my yard wet all the time!!! I still have trees...........just not so many now!!!!!