Brad,

Haven't you figured it out by now?  You don't need a snow blower, they don't
like wet snow anyhow, and you don't need a leaf vac.  Why?  You have kids
for that sort of thing now.  I remember buying a 600 dollar self propelled
lawn moer when my son was about 14 or 15 years old.  He is the youngest.
Our yard, back then, was 225 by 75 feet so he had a lot to mow.  When we
brought that new self propelled mower home and he fired it up, he actually
came in and personally thanked me, when he was finished, for buying that
mower.  That summer, he mowed the grass so many times, our yard had about a
half an inch tall grass all summer.  Sandy and I used to laugh whenever we
heard the mower because there would be Everett, out in the yard, enjoying
his yard work.  Actually, Everett is 23 now and he still uses that same
mower.  Fortunately, a little over half of our lot is now his by ownership.
My smaller backyard is all pea gravel, no grass thank the Lord, and the
front yard is pretty small because we have a gravel circle drive that takes
up most of the front of the house.  Shoot, if I had it my way, the circle
drive would come right up to our porch.  It's about 50 feet from the porch
now.  Either that, or what's left of the front yard I would asphalt, or
black top, and use it for roller skating.  I always loved roller skating
even after going blind.  We had two big trees in the front yard but the city
offered, for free, to cut down one big tree because it was dying so we let
them.  I checked.  Do you know how expensive it is to get a tree company to
just trim your trees let alone cut one down?  I don't want to live in a
retirement complex but I would be tempted if Everett wasn't living on the
back end of our property.

Phil.