I deal with a neighbor's sweetgum trees in a similar fashion. Big piles of big leaves in the winter, lots and lots of hard and spiky golf-ball size seeds in the springtime.

Mow and mulch them back onto the grass. Freeze protection and fertilizer. Nature's own. Free.

Compact into burnable bricks and sell them as fire starters.
$10/per at the supermarket and hardware store.
$20/online. "28.3% off today. Act now. Included pet rock for orders over $100k."

Compost pile. Add the proper food scraps and cow compost and other enzymes. Sugary black loam to feed worm farms and make everything planted turn into magic.

Talk to kid. "Here is a small job available. Here are tools. Might be more in the future. Want it"?

Life giving ya lemons.

Sounds to me like you need to put 5 bags with her garbage and 5 with yours.

On the plus side you get those beautiful views. Our leaves go from green to brown. But then I don't pick any of the leaves up so it's a lot less of an issue for me.

It’s just a way of life here…soon comes the snow…and polar vortex this year yay! At least we do not have natural disasters here like hurricanes, wild fires etc…..the worst disaster I can remember is the ice storm of 1991 that happened on my birthday. That was wild. So, I shouldn’t complain. Could be way worse.

My blower has a mulching bag. 3 bags of leaves turn into 1.

We used to have one of the largest trees on the block in the parkway in front of our house.

When we first moved in I didn't think much about it as it was nice to sit out front in the middle of the yard in the shade it provided.

Then it dropped its leaves and I had other thoughts about it.

Over the years I came to appreciate it though. It cast its shadow on our front window during the summer so the house stayed cooler than if it had not. At certain times of the year it would shade the driveway nicely so I could actually practice being a 'shade tree mechanic' for real.

It was a good excuse for me to get a mower that vacuumed as it cut. During the leaf dropping season I've been known to mow my yard twice a week, just to pickup the leaves.

It got a disease some years ago and the city had to take it down. I cried that day while I photographed them doing it. I knew that in my lifetime I'd never have a tree that big do so much for me and my family.

The tree we had the city plant in its place is growing pretty well now, but it's nowhere close to the old tree when it comes to all the things a tree can really do.

I had a 60 year old tree that was covering my detached garage and the branches extended out in front of the garage like an umbrella. Not only did it shade my back patio and entire back yard, but I could sit under the branches in a rain storm and stay dry. The tree was one of 4 reasons I bought this house.

The tree was half on my property and half on my neighbors, at the base.

One day, a new neighbor moved in and quickly had a tree service cut it down while I was at work.

When I confronted him, he said he didn’t want to pick up leaves…..

I really became enraged and smoke would come out my eyeballs when I saw this guy and his awful wife…….after they set up an above ground pool and realizing that they failed to level it, they emptied it allowing all the water to pour into my back yard…..and they cut down all the greenery….basically decades old brush and hedges that divided our property at the property line and provided privacy…then they planted a massive garden that attracted a massive rat population.

So for the rest of the summer, I sat in my garage where I have a loud stereo system with two speakers in the garage and 2 outside and I blasted Slayer, drank beer and acted out my rage.

The next summer, they were gone.

Just reading about the tree being cut down makes my blood boil.

Reminds me of an older gent I met in the 912 group. He had new neighbors move in that wanted to cut down the old cypress trees along his driveway that provided privacy between the houses too. Not sure what ever happened in that instance. He lived in the same neighborhood as my in-laws and they've been gone a number of years now so I haven't been by his house for a while now.

My wife would see me in a range and urge me to let it go because they were young……is 35 years old not an adult? 2 years later I am still pissed …..and looking at the massive stump still back there, I would say more like 80% was on my side.

Picture doest do justice to how big and beautiful this tree was. Now just a big open space and back yard so hot I can barely sit back there.

My next move will be out to the country with no neighbors anywhere.

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