Cath Olive joins the landcare team- for a few months

Cath Olive has become a very valuable member of the Landcare Bushfire Recovery team during her short period of unemployment from DPI. For the past few months she has been visiting landholders and delivering plants in the Marysville, Buxton, Taggerty and Narbethong areas.
Her help at treeplanting days has been wonderful, selecting & laying out plants, cooking lunch, supervising volunteers and chatting with property owners.
Unfortunately for us the DPI have realized the mistake they made by not renewing her contract and she will be returning to her old job soon. We will miss her!
Cath has learnt a few things about being a Landcare coordinator that surprised her:

• Using the family car to drive long distances crammed with loads of trees, stakes guards and tools.
• Cooking morning tea and lunch for up to 40 people with a wide range of dietary requirements in a paddock while it is raining.
• Not knowing quite what to expect at each site before we arrive with the volunteers. It could be fitting 300 ground cover plants into a small back yard or planting 1200 trees on a steep windy hill side. Every day presents a different challenge.
• The fact that we do our office work at home in the evenings and early morning. Emails are sent and answered at 10.30pm or 7am!
• Not having an office, computer or phone supplied.
• Having our equipment & tools stored in Bridget's backyard.
• The need to be resourceful, flexible and innovative. Like when you turn up to a property with a bus load of volunteers to find the gate locked and the landholder in Melbourne because they have forgotten the date.