Messy yards? Really? Let’s embrace diversity

A recent Roasted & Toasted post (Dec. 29, 2020) lamented the lack of a tree bylaw that would apply an Orwellian big brother approach to the writer’s view of unsightly vegetation.

Trees and shrubs come in all shapes and sizes, just as people do. What does the commenter want us to do? Should homeowners be mandated to have the exact same Marxist manicured lawn and yard?

We happen to live in a society that still, I hope, values variety, eccentricity and creativity. My heart goes out to the writer who pines for a life in a concrete soviet style community where everything is controlled through some extensive list of do’s and do not’s.

Unfortunately, for our writer a messy yard with leaves on the ground and branches pointing this way and that is really nature doing its thing.

I suppose Mr. Scrooge thinks snow falls in appropriate places and there should be a bylaw against that too. Let us celebrate diversity, both in our yards and in our communities. It will be a sad day if the brown shirts march around town enforcing regulations controlling those who are “other”.

This is Canada celebrating the Christmas message (not the commercial one) so let us all celebrate those precious and decorative seeds, needles (drug free ones) and leaves.

Shut off the negative news, take the family for a nature walk, and play in the leaves and snow.

Hooray to nature and humbug to negativity!

Henry Komadowski

Lethbridge