Leaf pick up

We've learned that they have a different way of picking up leaves here in New Jersey. First, you rake all your leaves into the street. No kidding. Just see the picture at right. We are given dates for leaf pick up based on our voting district, which unfortunately, we have no idea what it is but oh well. When we see all our neighbors frantically raking leaves into the street then we know we'd better get busy!

On the day of pick up, the city uses snow plows to push all the leaves on your street into a big pile. And I mean a BIG pile at least 5 feet high. My kids would love to ride their bikes right into it. This big pile gets carted away in a truck later in the day but in the meantime, they have to clean up all the leaves up and down the street that didn't quite make it into the pile. Unfortunately I haven't been able to snap a picture of this, but seriously, they come by with a big vacuum! A large vacuum hose sucks the leaves up into a truck. It is like a giant Noo Noo from Teletubby land. I could hardly believe it when I first saw it and thought, well, that's one way to do it! It looks so funny to me.

We have one more leaf pickup...after Christmas, so I'll try to time it right to get a picture of that for your viewing pleasure. Until then, I'm just wondering how they're going to manage picking up all the leaf piles which are now completely covered in snow and ice! Any suggestions?