At least once a year, most households on North America are faced with the unenviable taks of dealing with raking leaves. Lifehacker has a lively discussion about the best ways to rake leaves. Here are my favourite tips and take-outs from the article:

Tip #1 – Rake in straight lines: That serves as an objective way to know where you’ve been and where you havent.

Tip #2 – Learn how to bag it: Here is the trick: take the bag, lay it down between your feet so that the opening is facing the pile, then use your heels to hold down one side of the bag and lift the other side with your hand. Now you can just pull all the leaves into the bag with your last remaining arm

Tip #3 – It’s better for the back to work in small areas. Rake up only what you can without changing position, then bag it. Move to a new area. Esepcailly applicable if you have a bad back.

Tip #4 - Mow it over – If you can stand having so many leaves in your yard, just mow over and let it mulch them up and fertilize your yard.

Tip #5 – Two Words : Leaf Blower

What are your best ways to rake leaves?