This article was in the latest issue of the AARP Bulletin:
A Tree Grows in Shrewsbury
Sometimes it’s the little things that apartment dwellers will fight for. In Shrewsbury, Mass., residents tussled with management over a crab apple tree.The Shrewsbury Housing Authority, which manages Francis Gardens, a 100-unit complex for older adults, ordered the tree cut down in September so a dumpster could be relocated.
Lee Perrone, 74, and Pat Henry, 65, didn’t want the dumpster beneath their windows. Besides, Perrone says, when the tree blooms, “it’s the most beautiful thing—pink.” So the pair roped chairs around the tree and staged a sit-in. Both women received eviction notices. After a local lawyer volunteered to represent them, the housing authority backed down. The tree was saved. Officials did not return calls for comment.Heh, heh, heh...my kinda women!
Photos from Wikipedia
4 comments:
Hooray for them and for the lawyer who stepped up and got them covered.
Nice to have a feel good story today.
[p.s., off topic: my White-crowned sparrows are learning to use the suet feeder where I have peanut dough. They're clumsy, but succeeding. The juncos are looking on and thinking, "hmmm, I wonder if I could do that?"]
Yeah! I liked the story too...
I've noticed Julie Zickefoose writes about putting crumbled suet out on a rail or flat feeder. She apprently only puts it out a little at a time...mostly for her Bluebirds. They have learned to come immediately when she puts it out or to call her, even looking in the window at her, when she forgets or they run out.
I'm mentioning this because she, too, is troubled by birds she doesn't want to attract...and won't put it out if they're around; only for her bluebirds.
I see juncos, siskins and especially goldfinches eating at my suet cages a lot...especially when there is no room at the seed feeder next to it. But sparrows? That's fairly unusual, isn't it?
What about the wrens...are they still around? I sure wish I'd see some... Anything I put on the ground (thinking wrens, sparrows, tohees, etc.)...the darn pigeons and squirrels get immediately.
The Bewick's wren comes to the peanut dough a time or two every day or so, but is intimidated by all the other birds.
The female Hairy Woodpecker only eats the peanut dough; the male only the peanut pieces. Go figure.
If I put crumbled suet out the House sparrows would be all over it.
Good story and good for those women.
Imagine: someone thinks that a lovely living thing is an object to remove so that one of the ugliest of man-made objects can be placed in that exact spot.
I love that these women roped themselves to chairs around this tree.
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