- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor and a friendly reader

After being closed for Thanksgiving Day because....it was Thanksgiving Day?....the Owen Sound Leaf and Yard Compost site is going to be closed again during daylight hours on weekdays from this Thursday through next for some clean-up and chipping.  A bountiful fallen- leaf season and a gorgeous week for raking have filled the site to bursting.

Assuming that you don't use all those leaves for browns in your home compost, or as mulch and over-wintering habitat for your garden, all of which I would recommend,  they will be made into free mulch at the compost site, available soon. 

Lots of folks seem to believe that those big paper bags are intended for single-use only, and when there’s wet stuff to get rid of, that’s the case. But a lot of people fill the bags with dry fallen leaves and then simply chuck the bag on the pile at the compost site.

One of our readers tries to re-use the bags they have and by emptying out the primo ones that have been left behind at the compost site. "I haven’t bought a bag in nearly 20 years and one of the bags that I have, my favourite, has actually been in service for 11 years. When I’m at the compost site I harvest the prime bags and offer them to neighbours for $1/5 bags, and donate the money into whoever is asking, usually the poppy boxes. Just one of my side hustles."

The same reader supplied the before-and-after photo of the sewer grate by his home after doing his good deed for the day. Keeping your neighbourhood sewer grates clear is the first thing on the list of free things you can do to prevent your basement from flooding, and as a bonus it keeps our roads safe. 

Those leaves can also be taken to the compost site.  On the weekend. Or under cover of darkness.