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Comment by apercu | Hacker News Reader

I have a pretty robust electric chainsaw, but it's not great for hardwoods at all. Of course, I have 5 chainsaws so maybe I'm not the one to take advice from, I might have a problem ;)

For leaf blowers and weed trimmers I agree.

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Same for leaf blowers. I worked on a farm in the Swiss mountains where we used large Stihl leaf blowers to get the hay down the mountain [1] so we could pick it up by machine and electric leaf blowers were only used for cleanup jobs in the barn. Nowadays I live in the city but I still get sweaty flashbacks whenever I hear a gas leaf blower during the summer months.

[1]: Similar to https://youtu.be/Rni8F0GFjW4?t=145 but just imagine the mountains/rolls of hay to be 2m high and the slope be >45°s

Oh, I hear you, every fall in Ontario (and now Wisconsin) the sound of gas leaf blowers and that high-pitch whine drives me crazy. I have an electric one to basically clear off the front porch but I feel like even that is noise pollution (much worse than a riding mower to my ears) and so I rake an acre of mixed hardwood next to the house by hand spring and fall and trailer the leaves a half mile up the road to compost.

I'm sure it was hard work, but a farm in the Swiss mountains for a period of time sounds like a life experience!

Sorry, I should clear that up. I mulch (mower) as much of the leaves as I can and leave it on the ground, I only rake up what I can't mulch. And that's to protect the ground cover under the oak trees from dying under the leaves and turning everything in to mud/eroding.

Just curious: what kind of cows did you all have?

(the dairy farmer near us has Simmentaler and Rotfleck)

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