AUTUMN STUFF

This should be a winter’s day but it’s more like autumn so I’ve been out in the garden making the Council’s life easy for them. Cut the branches into even lengths and tie them with cotton string, no nasty nylon or wire, put them out for collection and make sure the pointy ends go towards the path. The bundles mustn’t be too big and I have to count them before I ring up the depot. This takes me about two weeks, it takes a council worker, built like a wharfie, two minutes to throw them in the chomper.

Last year I had the Brick Outhouse cut down the huge Blue Spruce. There is no way you can tie up those sorts of branches so he hauled them out to the nature strip and piled them up. I also had branches from the Golden Elm, Sycamore and Acer trees. Then the fun started. It was how many bundles….none. Then we can’t have our workers come and pick them up. It’s a one off, it won’t be like this next year, the trees have been cut down. NO, we need bundles.

I dug my heels in and said they could stay out there until they rotted. Enter sniffy neighbour who rang up on my behalf to say how decrepit I was and how much help I needed. Thank you for nothing, sniffy neighbour. One Council department came out and photographed the pile but forgot to tell its companion department who also sent a photographer. The next call was to tell me how much I would be fined if the nature strip wasn’t cleared in three days. Right said Fred and I was up the next morning at 6 o’clock, on a day much like today fortunately. It took me five hours to drag branches back under the car park and bundle up what others were small enough. Thank you to all the crappy neighbours who drove past.

I had managed to save up enough money to have a plumber come and fix the bathroom taps but that now went to the man who came and removed the debris and finished cutting the trees down to stumps. He was worth the money, clearing everything even to sweeping up the pine needles. One day later, the first Council department rang and said they’d reviewed my situation and would pick up the branches for this year. This was one month after the first photograph had been taken by the first department.

I should have taken an I.O.U. because I have a carport full of citrus trees. Why do branches always look small on the tree but fill the yard when they’re chopped? They’re heavier on the ground so I had to tie a rope to each one and pull it across the lawn (lawn?) to the carport otherwise the mower man will have hysterics and just go round the piles.

Sniffy neighbours on both sides are still complaining. It’s no good taking away their built up garden beds and then telling me it’s my fault the bottom of the fences are rotting. I don’t water and I don’t have garden beds. On one side whining people want me to cut down the tree in the corner. It was originally a Lillypilly with big purple fruit but it’s gone back to the original graft tree which gives me hayfever and has little black berries. The birds love the berries and they have to crap somewhere so what am I going to do, walk out and give them a stern talking to about not doing it on the shiny roof next door. Them on the other side have the cotonester red berries being dropped everywhere. I’m an equal opportunity pest encourager.

At least when I was thirsty I only had to reach up and eat a mandarin. My legs and arms look a bit worse for wear but my blood clotting factor seems to be working. My first Camellia bud has flowered. The world’s worst photographer will try to get a good pic of that. It’s pink and called a Waterlily Camellia. I have two Camellias which are the only things I haven’t killed off. I don’t count Geraniums, nothing kills them. My snowdrops are also up, they survive because they’re underground where I can’t do much damage. At least I can say, my garden is where the wild things grow, nothing much else does.