Chez the Luddites.

The first day of winter time, clear cloudless sky, Hollowe'en is a Sunday holiday. I don’t read the Times, I forgo the listening of Michael Enright out of St. John’s – I like being able to pick and choose when I listen to CBC programmes - to head out and rake the leaves and make platinotypes. It is 7:30 AM Sounds alternate between the scraping of the rake over the lawn and the whoosh of whatever screen door is closest to the sun. Almost curse the blueness of the sky as I cannot get into any rhythm with the raking as it is so bright. Think better of it as this type of day won’t be around for long.

I tell my class that it is better to use a UV printer but I have better luck with the sun and there is something about dragging the green plastic Adirondack chair about the lawn to aim the contact printing frame. The leaf piles grow we start putting them by the road so that they will be picked up on Tuesday.

At 8:30 the scraping is overwhelmed by the whir of the leaf blower. He on the other side of the cul-de-sac is out. Yesterday in almost gale force winds he tried to rustle up the leaves with it and failed. To-day he is out again. he stops and brings out the lawn mower and the edger all motorised.

Then two lawns down the same high pitched whir, then a couple of lawns from that. Feel so backward but the leaf blowers seem so useless, the rake clears vast swaths of the lawn with the leaves helping in the pile. The rest of the neighbourhood seem to be blowing one leaf at a time to the kerb.

I am sure that they are pitying me as I am them and their pity deepens when I pull out the Deardorff to make a snap. A dozen prints and a leaf border at the kerb are the results.