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?
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
3 comments:
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.
I 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.
I 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."
You can actually find such services on Amazon, if you don't mind letting Bezos be your middleman/broker/factotum.
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