Overwhelmed by the fallen leaves, with a bad knee and an inflexible deadline for the last city trash pick up of bagged leaves, I hired it done.
There are clearinghouse companies that match work and workers; I've used one for lawn-mowing in the past, when neither Tam nor I had time, and they did a good job. The same company coordinates leaf removal. It's not cheap, but it's not excessive, especially considering the alternative.
What showed up was a father-daughter team with basic equipment, on a bitterly-cold day when the leaves were sticking to the ground. The father pointed that out, I agreed and asked him just do what he could; if some leaves were left, that was okay as long as the big leaf piles (I've been able to do a little raking) and loose stuff went away. I told him to ignore the patio, where I have managed to accumulate a loose pile of fallen limbs and small branches, cut-down saplings and yanked-up Winter Creeper.
Two hours later -- two hours of steady effort -- the front and back yards were 95% leaf-free, and he asked if I wanted the brush pile on the patio hauled away, naming a price well under what it was worth to me to have it gone. Darned right I wanted it removed! He was happy to extricate the fire bowl and utility wagon from under the heap and I was happy to have my patio back.
Why didn't I do this last year?
Longer you live the more you learn. If you continue to learn the longer you will live. Still do most of that stuff better than people I can hire so there is that.
ReplyDeleteI have in the past looked at my time as being free. But then, when I thought of it, I always had overtime available, which paid 30$ per hour. So when I had to pay for an oil change that I could do myself, I figured that it would take me an hour, and if I could pay someone less than an hour of overtime, it was a better deal for me to just work an extra hour and pay to have it done.
ReplyDeleteI was able to do most work on my car, until they got too complicated for me. And I did the same trade off, how much time to replace an alternator, compared to what I could pay a backyard mechanic in the neighborhood to do it. Often, on jobs like that, he would do it for 20$, and he worked his main gig at a dealership, so he was competent.
This year, I plan on paying to have my driveway plowed when the snow is heavy. I am retired, and so it is not about time, but rather wear and tear on my snow blower.
I recall a conversation with a co-worker who said "I used to do all that work myself, but I actually make a decent living now, so I can pay someone else to do it."
ReplyDeleteYou can actually find such services on Amazon, if you don't mind letting Bezos be your middleman/broker/factotum.