Well let us begin with news, it rolls on a deafening noise of waffle. One thing I am pleased about is that Johnson, when the history books are written will come out the loser he is. Such a small spitefulness but just look at the state of the country. I see people arguing everywhere on whether we should be mixing and notice the anger expressed by the news that grouse shooting and hunting - you thought hunting had stopped? will continue. What it has all shown is that there is definitely one rule for the rich and the rest of us can go hang....
The last couple of weeks, farm machinery has roared up and down most days, ever since Bridge farm had been sold and amalgamated into the other two farms at Great Edstone. Industrial farming makes one weep, I dreamt last night with 50 million in the bank, I would buy up the land round here and take it back to a wilderness. Yes I know we have to eat, but just look at the percentages down below of how much land we humans take compared to the wild. Also I would build a small estate of houses for the young and those forced to live in statics.
We are perilously close to a 'no deal' over Brexit, fasten your seat belts, those in charge are playing with fire and don't give a s**t, all for some weird idea of nationalism and the British bulldog. Living with one's neighbours is supposed to be good for you!
But the hedgerows are full of berries for the birds that are beginning to disappear, and come on as the gamekeepers shoot another predatory bird to save the grouse the shooting parties need for killing what does it matter?
Life on Earth has suffered five mass extinctions of biodiversity in its long history, caused by massive volcanic eruptions, deep ice ages, meteorite impacts and clashing continents. But some scientists believe a sixth mass extinction has now begun.
This one is very different, caused not by geology or natural climate change, but by a single species – us. Humans and our livestock now consume 25-40% of the planet’s entire “primary production”, i.e the energy captured by plants on which all biodiversity depends. We have become a voracious top predator across the entire globe.
One estimate suggests that, by weight, 97% of the world’s vertebrate land animals are now either humans or our farm animals – just 3% are wild. Another consequence of this domination is that humanity is driving evolution in many places, most obviously in domesticating crops and animals, but also through genetic modification and even by how we choose to run wildlife reserves.
Furthermore, the intricate jigsaw of life, constructed over hundreds of millions of years, has been thrown into disarray in the last 10,000 years by humans relocating.
Agree totally with what you say here Thelma. I was married for 23 years to an 'old fashioned' farmer who cared for the land and loved every blade of grass, knew where every orchid was and went to look for it every year as he did the marsh marigolds and came in at lunch time and exciteably told me. He knew where the mushrooms would arrive first, he cut his hedges with the birds in mind and knew more or less where the two pairs of yellow hammers would nest each year. Luckily one half of the farm went to friends who farm in the same kind of way.
ReplyDeleteAs to the other issues to mention - I have been reading the Swires diary serialised this week in The Times - I am appalled but not suprised.
Then there is the way Covid is being handled.
All issues that make me despair. Then I look at your stone circle - at the exquisite sparkle of that stone, of the thoughts and feelings behind it all - and I think that maybe, just maybe, it has always been thus and that all the modern forms of communication jave just at ast brought it all to the forefront.
At my age I can but take joy where I find it - in the birds, the plants, the passing of the seasons, the friendships, the love that is meted out -but if I let myself think too deeply I despair.
I know that there are plenty of good farmers Pat, and your farmer especially so. But there is a suburban neatness that we inflict on the land, cutting hedgerows with fearsome weaponry, ploughing the soil with heavy machinery, no worms left, they say we have about 50 years of soil fertility left. Perhaps it will get better, who knows, we wont be around to find out.
DeleteI also agree with almost everything you say, but I have to make a point about grouse shooting. Shooting game birds is a large country industry which employs thousands of local people. Whether or not you agree with it, to put a stop to it would throw many more people into unemployment. Left wing newspapers have latched onto 'toffs being allowed to shoot grouse', but - in this case - it is not a case of Conservatives looking after their own. Many other sports are exempt from the 6 rule, but for political reasons, they are not mentioned alongside shooting parties. Rogue gamekeepers poisoning predatory hawks is a separate issue.
ReplyDeleteYes Tom I have heard this argument from other quarters and as you say employs many people, though beaters are not well paid. What I think gets people like me is the artificial restraints put on the moors so that a handful of men/women get a short vicarious pleasure of shooting a moving target, albeit slow in the case of pheasants. I think it is a moral problem and I should accept it ;)
DeleteThe first pheasant introduced for shooting was too slow, so they brought in the one we know today. The moral issue is about to become much hotter. The government are planning to make trespass a criminal offence. This would be a return to the age of feudalism. If they ever manage to get the bill through, there will be big trouble and the lives of country people will become very difficult.
DeleteI think trespass will be a step too far, most people wander at will in some places and restrictions will only put their backs up. Even if it does get through parliament, there is always law to obstruct it. Good old days there was just 'Beware of the Bull' on the gate now it is AI.........
DeleteI was seen off by several bulls in the good old days. These days, cows with calves are more dangerous.
DeleteTo think, we could merely have all stayed in Africa, and sank it to the ocean floor. Gallows humor. I don't know a salvation.
ReplyDeleteWe need gallows humour Joanne, think we have entered the 'Age of Enlightenment', but the only thing we have learnt is that our leaders are as equally stupid as the ignorant.
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