My colleague Bill McAuliffe wrote today about the tardy de-leafing of trees this year in the metro. He observed that the ginkgo tree in the park across from the Star Tribune in downtown Minneapolis dumped its entire cloak of yellow fan-shaped leaves overnight Tuesday.Read his story here. The huge maple tree in my Minneapolis back yard followed suit Wednesday. On Thursday, I called the city to find out how late they collect leaves for composting and found out there would be no more pickups from my address this season. The public works employee explained that they can't pick up yard waste when there's snow on the ground, they always end yard-waste collection the week before Thanksgiving and they will be laying off the yard-waste haulers at the end of the week. My observation that Mother Nature doesn't always conform to a strict calendar prompted a repeat of the same explanations and a curt "thank you for calling." *Click.* I guess I'll be storing a mountain of leaves in plastic bags on my driveway for the next five months. The eco-friendly paper yard-waste bags don't have a chance of surviving the winter. If you live in Minneapolis, do you find the program works well?
