Cherry Blossom Candy Leaf

February 25th was one of the worst days on Purdue St. As I was preparing to leave for work, a crew of ax men showed up to cut down the beautiful, mature tree in front of my house. The tree is on city property, but we pay to water the grass there, Ben mows it and we both love and enjoy it. I did everything but tie myself to the tree. In the end, two city officials came to my house to talk me out of my tree craze and in under thirty seconds, the tree was chainsawed to the ground.
What bothered me most about it is that we did not receive any notice that the tree was going to be removed. Had I known that not even a single branch of the tree would end up in the land fill, that all the wood would become mulch and wood chips for other city projects along with larger pieces becoming hand made furniture that is donated to charities in Moorpark, maybe it would not have been such a confusing and horrible experience. Also, had I known that the city would allow me to pick a new tree that would be planted, or two or even three, I wouldn't have gone ape shit on the city employees. Even though a perfectly beautiful tree was lost, (and "had to be" because of the damage its roots were causing to the sidewalk) some sort of notice would have resolved some of my concerns and informed me about all those unknowns.

So, on March 3rd, I went to the Moorpark City Council meeting and prepared a ten minute speech on the rights of trees in Moorpark and tax payers, along with a tremendous need for a change in notifcation procedures (as in, make them mandatory). Apparently, we should have been notified, but blah blah blah, we weren't. When I arrived at the meeting, I found out that I had to make my statement in under 3 minutes, which I probably should have known with all the school board meetings I attended in trying to keep my former elementary school from closing. So quickly, as the public comment section was early in the meeting, I had to summarize my statement and then later turn in the full version of "The Tree Epic" as my complete statement to the city council.

I was very nervous and angry, but will let you be the judge. In the video link (which appears in the upper left corner of the website), I appear 19:49 in (so fast forward). I had no idea this was being videotaped. Maybe I would not have been so antsy, I would have stood up straight and tried to adjust my voice from the "about to cry" shake that it was. I also would have probably lost about 15 lbs. and blow dried my hair better in the back (which showed up when I walked across the entire screen to give my full written statement to the clerk).

Our tree was killed, but we will be getting a new tree this month. In fact, they let us pick it out, which makes the situation a little better. We picked a Jacaranda Mimosifolia, one of my favorite trees. It's what some people may call "messy", but it's a beautiful mess of purple flowers. I can't wait until I have a new tree to look at and enjoy.