Leaves ...... ugh!

I took part in the annual Autumn ritual today - raking leaves.  Or rather, I should say, blowing and vacuuming leaves.  God bless the man at Toro Company who thought up the combination leaf blower / leaf vacuum!  I spent about two hours cleaning up the backyard and then about an hour cleaning up the front yard.

You know what's disheartening though?  Coming back to the backyard after cleaning up the front yard only to see the backyard look like I never touched it!  Many leaves literally jumped at the chance to replace their fallen comrades.  The good news, though, is that it looks like maybe one more week and all the leaves will be off that sugar maple in my neighbor's backyard.

This is the tree we had to have topped about five years ago.  I'm thinking that once the leaves are all gone, I just might be able to get the center of my G5RV up another ten feet or so.  It's regained some of its stature in these past five years.

The maple back in December 2005, right after being topped - it has gained about 10 - 15 feet back.

I did get some time to head down the basement and tune around for a bit.  I heard VP2V/NY6X calling CQ on 17 Meters and handling a bit of a pileup.  Of course, the British Virgin Islands is an easy trip from NJ, but it was still fun and gratifying to be heard among the clamor with only 5 Watts.  I managed to snare Naoki on my second call - a testament to his superb ears and his superb operating skills.

That more than made up for the leaves!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP  When you care to send the very least!