Make's me so MAD!

I have been visiting a site in the Rockefeller Grove Park for several years now watching a wild rose grow. It has an extremely fragrant flower that is single petaled, is red and the blooms are only the size of my thumbnail. I was out there today and it was gone! I was going to try to get a rosehip from it this year for seed...But some greedy person took a shovel and dug up the whole plant! They did not even fill in the hole and killed several other wild plants in the process. This is the type thing that really Frosts me...just had to complain....What is your pet gripe?

Zany,
You have a good gripe and I don't blame you one bit for being upset. Unfortunately this sort of thing happens all the time. I took a medicinal herb course a few years ago and we would wild harvest many of the plants used. One thing we were taught was to never take more then you'll use and always leave a gift for the remaining colony of plants. "Gift" meaning a drink of water, a bag of compost, a handful of bone meal, or what ever you think the plants might benefit from. If you take a little ~ give a little. Remembering this always reminds me not to be greedy.

It's too bad not everyone thinks that way though. That's why so many of the medincinal plants are endangered now. People just view them with dollar signs in their eyes. Ginseng used to be a common weed here in Maine. I've never seen the plant growing wild in my lifetime.

My pet gripe? You mean I have to list just one? LOL My BIGGEST gripe is the way people (around here anyway) cut down HUGE 100-200 year-old live oak trees for no reason other than they want more sun in their yard. What I would give for a tree like that!!! (sigh)

Terri

Know what you mean Terri! Like murder to cut down a majestic old oak tree!

I guess my biggest gripe are the dam**d slugs we have around here. I personally went outside after dark on numerous nights a couple of years ago and spotted 'em in the grass with a flashlight. Killed approx. 1,700 (yes, that's seventeen hundred) that summer. Last summer, they were just as numerous as ever. They eat the hosta, tomatoes, you name it! Should be a law against them!
PS: I live in town on a postage stamp sized lot too.

Wow, oblambert! That's a lot of slugs!!!

Terri

That IS lot of slugs, yikes! But you know what? As mad as I get when my garden is decimated by slugs, terrapins, and other critters, I still find it easier to forgive them because they really don't know any better, and they're just doing what comes naturally. (I'll trap them and kill them, but I can't hold a grudge....)

Deliberately STEALING an entire plant is not as easily forgiven. It is an intentional, malicious and selfish act, and ignorance is no excuse. I can't even summon a hollow victory in knowing the new "owner" will probably get little satisfaction from their new acquisition, since the plant likely won't survive the shock of being uprooted. Everybody loses.

One of my biggest complaints is people who throw their cigarette butts out the car window. IMHO if it's good enough to stick between your lips and suck down into your lungs, it's good enough to stick in your own ashtray. Sorry if I'm stepping on any toes, but I just moved from a part of the country that annually faces wildfires because people toss their still-lit butts out onto the dry grass of the highway median. It frosts my behind to watch a driver do it, and if I could, I'd pick up the butt, chase them down, and make them put it where it belongs.

Okay, now that I've got THAT off my chest, whew! I feel much better!!!! So, who's next?

I guess my biggest complaint (that I can think of off the top of my head) is litterbugs. We have around 1,000 feet of road frontage on a small country road. It appears the entire state of TN drives this road and uses it as their refuse area. I filled a 52 gallon trash container in one day last week picking up all the trash - just on my property. :( It made me want to camp out by the road and chase down any litterbugs I see. Sigh.. blood pressure rising just thinking about it...

I've never seen anyone steal plants like described above... it would upset me also, especially if it was a park-life wild area.

Dave

go_vols, I know what you mean about the cig. butts. I am one of the politically incorrect addicts myself and I do not throw my trash out the window. I live in Redwood country and Forests are not meant to be ashtrays eirhte! I actually picked up a butt a lady tossed on the ground and walked up to her...tapped her shoulder and said excuse me, I think you dropped this...and handed it to her! she seemed a bit flustered but managed to get it into the trash can!

On the subject of selfish littering... How about those that just dump their trash in any remote area they can back their truck up to. It happens a lot around here because people are too cheap to pay a fee to dump at the land fill. You can always find old refrigerators, washing machines, furniture, tires, and bags of garbage out in fields and a long deserted roads. One of our favorite walking areas has been closed off with a chain link fence and a big padlock because of this.

We had a lot of that in Oklahoma, too. Our county provides several free dumps, so there's really no excuse to not properly dispose of your trash. I don't see a LOT of discarded appliances and furniture along the roadside like I did in Oklahoma, so maybe the free dumps work?

Just remember folks, laws keep the honest people honest. Poverty and ignorance, among a few other reasons such as inherited genes, make for dishonest people.
My father-in-law was one of the most highly respected guys in the county. But he always disposed of his non-burnable trash in a stream on his property. He disposed of his worn out vehicles by dumping them up a hollow. That's how it is when you are not wealthy....and that's how it is gonna remain. People just can't get around their genetic blueprints.....something like computer programs. We are a really pathetic species when it comes to genetics:)
And being wealthy does not make us any smarter....just luckier.

I don't believe in luck.

Dave

I know what you're saying, but I guess I don't buy into poverty equating to dishonest or slovenly behavior.

Case in point: as newlyweds, my parents bought their first home in the early 60s for $600. It was about 500 square feet and had NO running water. They worked their tails off to put in plumbing and fix it up. It was a modest home to say the least, but it was always neat and clean. (My grandparents' home was just down the road, and had the everpresent worn-out sofa and old refrigerator on the front porch, so my dad's outlook on life certainly wasn't the product of his upbringing, to be sure.

My maternal great-grandmother raised my mom on a very meager pension (no social security back then); and one of her favorite expressions was "soap is cheap." (Translation: being poor doesn't mean you have to live in a dirty, trashy environment.)

I'm not condemning those who live a different way, but I guess I don't assume that money (or lack of it) makes people the way they are (I've seen cigarette butts tossed from expensive cars, too!) I'd rather believe that we all make choices in life, and our choices can overcome our genes and/or our upbringing. And yes, luck does play a factor, but to an extent we make our own luck by the attitude we approach life with.

I'm with the cig butts! I think there should be a heavy fine for tossing them out on the medians while still-lit. A woman was arrested recently in FL for doing that, she spent somewhere around 16 hrs in jail and was fined.

We have wildfires, mostly due to someone doing something stupid. Recently a guy started a wildfire because he didn't take proper care while burning backyard trash. He endup starting a fire that got I4 closed for a few days, smoke was to heavy for people to drive safely. That was just last month.

guess my msg. was not understood. basically, what I meant was that I believe our lives are like a computer program....our genes dictate what we are, physically and mentally and every way you can think of. so luck of the genes is the ultimate basis for being "lucky" in life. I really believe we have no more control over our lives than our genes permit us. when we think we are making free-will conscious decisions....it is simply our genes making us think that...or allowing us to think that. I know this is a little too deep for most to accept....but try running something on your computer without first installing the program that will allow you to do it. best analogy I can think of. sorry if this offends anyones egos. lol

Aw, no offense taken - just differing viewpoints. I tend to approach life with an existential philosophy. To take your analogy a step further, we choose (with limited choices perhaps) the operating system we run on our computers ;0)

I agree, GV, I know several people from good genes and old money who are some of the most slovenly people ever.
I guess that just because you have the program on your computer there is no guarantee that you will run it

On the throw-the-trash-out-the-car-window point..in the state of Pennsylvania, there is now an 800 phone number to report a driving litterbug! You write down a person's license plate #, along with the car description and the littering offense details (cigarette butt, soda can, etc..). The agency sends the offender (owner of the vehicle) a littering notice and an environmental awareness brochure. I feel as though I can do something about litterbugs and I hope the person getting the notice is both embarrassed but more conscientious in their future trash habits.
Trish