McHenry County Blog

If this were in the early 1980’s, I would have finished my work on the right-of-way of Lake Avenue in Lakewood yesterday.

After all, I've raked all the leaves from the village's property to the edge of the road.

Back then, the Village of Lakewood hired Veugeler to bring a truck with a big vacuum tube to suck up everyone’s leaves.

Now everyone has to put them in containers.

While Governor Richard B. Ogilvie was in office, he got a law passed (or the EPA, which he initiated, promulgated a rule) forbidding open burning, including leaves. That was quite a relief for me because I am quite irritated by smoke of any kind.

The Lakewood Village Board came up with a quite satisfactory alternative.

A leaf sucker-upper service.

It is certainly superior to the current system for homeowners and, I would imagine, would be easier for those working for Marengo Disposal than lifting all the leaves.

If you are curious how hard I worked yesterday, here’s what happened to one of my rakes.

And, yes, I would put them in the containers you see in the background, if they were not already full of leaves that were on village property.