Dilemma!

We are in a dilemma. When we first came here in 1991, the block was almost bare of trees. Plenty of marshmallows 6ft tall and wild mustard plants equally tall and one lone gumtree near the house. There were some little Lhemaniai trees along the fence and a ginormous sugar gum by the gate. The cry in those days was: "Plant trees especially natives ". So we planted and planted, three deep along the perimeter of our house block, interspersed with bottle brushes , small native rosemaries, grevillia Wynpara gems and eremophillae. They have now created a wonderful space for us but of course they litter bark and branches everywhere too now. And we are not allowed to burn except by special permission. The cry now of course is "Get prepared for summer and the fire danger season". Fair enough,but the other cry is" Remember our wild life and don't remove the bark and leaf litter". What does one do?? I'll admit if you do start to rake the leaf litter, you have every likely hood of a bearded dragon popping up its head , cocking it to one side and asking you what are you doing destroying its habitat and endangering its species. Mind you, the vineyards have done more harm to the bearded dragon than anything else. The dragons love sitting on top of posts , or in our case, rosebushes, and of course the grapes are now mechanically harvested and don't recognize the poor old beardy at all. You wonder how many don't finish up adding a little protein to the shiraz!!!! This reminds me of a little story from the station hand who was also a part time grape grower and used to deliver his grapes to a particular winery which also sold bulk port. One chap came and wanted his flagon filled because it had been an extra special drop. He pointed to the vat it had come out of, "Ah" said the cellarman " the one in which we found the drowned possum". !
One of the good things that happened today was the return of the young man who made our pond and relayed all our verandah bricks late last year. He is a very willing and enthusiastic gardener, so he trimmed the one olive tree (the other one had a dove on a nest so we didn't want to disturb her) cut down a tree which blew over in the last ferocious winds two weeks ago and the Agonis which was dying and then mulched all the twiggy bits in our mulcher. He is willing to tackle any job so there could well be some painting done and perhaps improve my chook shed plus all the trimming that is now inevitable in a mature garden. I am over the moon to have some one to call on for all those jobs Brian now finds hard to do. 

After lunch I took advantage of the SW wind and lit another but much smaller pile of twigs and leaf litter and burnt the acacia branches cut down this morning, it all leaves a good feeling of things achieved today.