Will you let nature take its course?

Today, you are facing an ethical dilemma. You know the issue. Look in your yard. You can address it, or wait for it to go away.

The leaves, my friend, have been blowing in the wind.

Will you find the rake, or maybe hire a kid with a rake?

Or will you "go green" and let nature take its course?

Claire Burroughes, Clovis' legislative and community development director, understands the struggle.

She said one of her neighbors uses his riding lawnmower almost every day to pick up leaves that have fallen off the trees - many of them leaves from trees on Burroughes' property.

"I do feel a certain responsibility that some of those leaves are mine," she admitted.

But then she thinks about the oak leaves that end up in her garden.

"I know full well those are not my leaves," she said, "because nobody in our neighborhood has any oak trees. So that does allay some of my guilt."

Neither Clovis nor Portales has any city ordinances related to leaf maintenance.

You can let them be free, or you can pile them up and load them into 55-gallon plastic bags and put them in dumpsters. Or you can blast them into the street or oblivion at 170 mph with a machine if that is your desire.

God bless eastern New Mexico, where government lets you decide whether leaf raking is the right thing to do.

You laugh, but this is not the case in some places.

In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, for example, it is unlawful for any persons to dump, throw, place or otherwise dispose of leaves on any public street, right-of-way or pedestrian walkway. If you get caught, there's a $500 fine.

Some cities even have bans on gas-powered leaf blowers because they make too much noise.

You know government is too meddlesome when it starts making up laws that defy nature.

"When the wind blows, it blows your leaves around anyway," Burroughes said.

"At the end of the day, we just end up sharing everything, don't we?"

Well, yeah. Unless your neighbor has a riding lawnmower with a grass/leaf catcher, and then ...

Never mind. Just leaf it alone if you want.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]