C'est La Vie

"As long as there are people on earth, they will be sexually active."
A psychologist/counsellor, who helped me settle some demons more than twenty years ago, made that comment to sister Meredith at a time when she was struggling following the break down of her marriage. It was said in the context of helping her deal with her fear and anxiety for her daughters who were approaching adolescence. Meredith told me about it as I drove her back from a session with the counsellor/friend/mentor. It was a tough time for her, suddenly on her own without the policeman husband and father.
I've thought of the comment many times when trying to come to terms with things in the years since. He could have said, "As long as there are people on earth there will be prejudice and bigotry." What it means to me is that human nature is as it is, and you need to accept things first, as a starting point, calmly and sensibly, and then do your best from there.

My tree of the week is the sweet pittosporum, also known as the tree daphne. We have half a dozen or so on our place. These are mainly large mature trees. I value them highly for their shade, windbreak and fire retardant quality, food and shelter for birds, and the magnificent scent of their flowers in early and mid spring. They are a source of nectar for my honey bees as well as native bees, moths and butterflies. The only downside of their ability to attract feeding birds with their fruit is the subsequent spread of seedlings, however I have found this is a minor problem. One or two maintenance tours of the property a year removing unwanted seedlings by hand pulling, and mowing or whippersnipping at fire tidy up time, does the trick.

In the mail the other day came a 'notice of an application for a planning permit'. The permit is to: remove vegetation (sweet pittosporum) from the Gembrook road reservations, the applicant for the permit is Cardinia Shire Council. Further reading of the notice shows there are 26 Roadsides involved with an average 40 trees per road= approx. 1040 trees. That's a lot of trees to take out in one hit.
Now and again you have to support the underdog so I'll lodge an objection when I have a little free time after Christmas.
It seems to me poor management to completely ignore roadsides for many years then declare war on the strongest species and remove all these in one swoop, disregarding the benefits of this wonderful tree that delight the senses of man, bird, butterfly and bee, not to mention the basic oxygen pumping, carbon removing attributes at a time of worrying climate change.
It's my view that instead of removing all the sweet pittosporums holus bolus there should be a balanced approach based on annual roadside maintenance removing unwanted seedlings and other weeds such as blackberry and ragwort, both of which, as noxious weeds, should not be there at all except for the obvious neglect of roadside reserves for many years.
Sweet pittosporum is considered as an environmental weed in the Cardinia Shire Council. It's only a problem if land is neglected. It's time we learnt to look after the land, not have a war on one particular useful species. How about a bit of regular sensible maintenance.
I'll keep you posted, but I don't really expect them to take any notice of my objection. C'est La Vie.