The 68-year-old metal worker for Rappahannock Roofing called a while back to talk about trees, leaves and the way many people in our area don't understand or fully appreciate either.

Bays first got in touch near the end of the long dry spell that turned fields to dust bowls this fall and sent the water table so low it seemed gone.

Prompting his call was the vision of people in his subdivision and others raking and blowing leaves into piles to be carted off.

"Why don't they just leave them in the yards?" Bays asked. "Don't they know that right now, those leaves are about the only thing that's trapping any moisture in the ground, and providing shade from the sun?"

I let Bays know he was preaching to the choir about the unnecessary nature of the annual leaf-raking marathons that crank up each fall in this largely suburban region.

Having city and country crews fill fleets of trucks with leaves and deposit them in landfills has always seemed a little silly to me.

Country folks would snicker at the thought of shipping leaves off to landfills.

Instead, they either chew them up in lawnmowers and let them become fertilizer, or rake them aside into piles that compost quite naturally on their own.

Bays said he was prompted to call after driving through subdivisions where people were furiously raking or blowing leaves into piles for collection crews.

"Not only are they giving up potential fertilizer for their yard, they're blowing all that dried-out soil all up into the air," he said. "It doesn't make sense."

I played devil's advocate and argued that people in subdivisions with small yards don't have lots of space to compost large accumulations of leaves, and may simply need to get them off their grass or driveways.

He countered that most folks have bushes or other spots in the yard where leaves could be left to slowly decompose and become fertilizer for lawn or plants.