Tag: Nature

Influences on Well-Being

How life has changed. In the time of black and white TV I remember watching Jack Hargreaves[1] wibbling on about a lost countryside. A romantic world of idyllic landscapes. Rolling English hills and green hedges. His series “Out of Town” played for a generation. To his credit he did focus on people and the way they lived their lives as much as the scenic backdrops.

He’s cheerily derogatory about the urban environment. Although he does take on the sentimentality that people have towards the countryside. In ways he’s a latter-day green campaigner. With a past century traditional style. 

This memory is sparked by me thinking about colds and flu. Winters accompaniments. Changeable January weather torments us in one way and in another gives us a tempting glimmer of the spring to come. It really is wet wet wet.

Ground water has risen to form shallow pools in the swamy field out back. This is much to the liking of the geese and a lone heron. The river Lambourn hasn’t yet bust its banks but that can’t be far off. Cloudy today with more rain on the way.

I’m fortunate in being in relatively good health. I’ve had my bout of winter blues. Now, I’m noticing the slightly shorter shadows when the sun shines. Everything is sodden. Hints of the season changing are out there. It’s the blubs that are trusting upwards from the soggy soil.

What do I attribute my good health to? I wouldn’t put it down to heathy living although the maximum of all things in moderation does appeal. In part, maybe it’s because I grew up in the world that Jack Hargraves documented. On a west country farm were muck and mud were plentiful at this time of year. Deep soggy and unavoidable.

I don’t know if youthful the exposure to muck and mud has a lifetime benefit. It certainly seems to be one theory that is put around. The idea that a person’s immune system learns about all the nasties that are encountered. It then adapts and knows how to fight off the worst of them.

My, and my brothers, inoculation consisted of a wheelbarrow, a pitchfork and a mountain of manure. Shifting this delightful stuff from farm sheds was mostly a manual task in the 1960s. Now, it’s a case of jumping on a Bobcat[2] or JCB and driving up and down until the job is done.

Solid stone-built farm buildings, like our cart shed were never intended for the use that my parents put them to. Keeping cattle indoors during the winter months. Layers of straw and muck accumulated their bedding grew in hight. By the time it was dry enough to let the cattle out into the surrounding fields their bedding was almost as deep as I was tall.

That’s how we earned our pocket money. A wheelbarrow, pitchforks and hundreds of trips backwards and forwards shifting muck. Creating a big pile in the farmyard. Then that got loaded into a muck spreader. The most organic fertiliser that can be spread on the land.

This memory is sparked. Looking at a cliff like face of compressed muck that went back for what seemed like miles. Digging away at it endlessly. Wheelbarrow load after load. A Sisyphean task, where only dogged persistence would pay off. No wonder I was a healthy young man.

[1] https://youtu.be/4e_jfU9eTSI

[2] https://www.bobcat.com/na/en

Technology and Visual Perception

As the winter sun rose this morning, I focused my binoculars on a distant silhouette of a bird. We inherited these bird watching binoculars from my father-in-law. With a times 30 magnification this majestic black waterbird was easy to see.

A tall trunk of a dead tree rises above the riverbank. It’s a perch where the Cormorant[1] sits in the early morning sunshine. I’d guess it’s a regular post fishing ritual. We sometime see him or her perfectly balanced with their wings outstretched. Two Jackdaws were sitting below this larger bird. It was clear the Cormorant was none to happy to have their company.

In our kitchen, as the radio burbled away, what struck me was the importance of distant vison. Looking out to see what’s on the horizon. As the sun illuminated the treeline. Leafless trees outlined against a blue sky. I hasten to add that this clear morning is more the exception than the rule over the last couple of weeks.

Because the Cormorant is an excellent fisher this is a good sign for the health of the river. The River Lambourn is a chalk stream that passes west to east at the boundary of the field adjoining our house. Fortunately, the river is far enough away for winter flooding not to be a problem. We have the benefit of seeing Berkshire’s riverbank wildlife as it makes its way quite oblivious to us watching it.

What a contrast. My eyes are now focused on a computer screen that is no more than a couple of feet away from me. If I was using my mobile phone or tablet, I’d be even closer to an electronic screen. I can see a nice picture of a typical Cormorant on my screen. It’s informative but no substitute for the real thing. A real individual.

Let’s make an assertion. Since 2006, the ratio of a person’s time spent looking at a close by screen as opposed to a distant image has dramatically changed. I’ve used that datum as it’s a convenient one related to the abundant mobile phone of any make and kind. I wonder what this has done for our visual perception capabilities. Will there come a time when looking for objects at a distance is a less than familiar experience.

It’s fascinating to see that the Boy Scouts still have an aircraft recognition list. The expectation that a young person looks up and spots a distant silhouette in the sky and can recognise it. Takes me back to the simplest childhood game of all. “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with A”. Looking heavenward at a fast-moving outline and shouting “Aircraft”.

Will these abilities diminish? Afterall it would be so much easier to let a phones’ camera and a suitable App do the work. Point and tap. Would that lead to people recognising more aircraft or birds or less? The jury is out on what our tech is doing to us. There are a lot of questions worth asking. Particularly when it comes to visual perception. Matching pictures and names are one thing. Looking at a distance in real-time and doing the same with confidence, that’s another.

[1] https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/cormorant

Arborist Adventures

Funny how we attribute a problem to a nation. I’m sure it’s not the fault of the Dutch. It’s more the fault of the Canadians. To be fair, it’s nature rather than anyone’s fault.

One of the enduring memories of my childhood is looking out of a bedroom window to see the most enormous line of tall Elm trees. Running east to west, these magnificent trees were a dominant feature of the skyline. Looking south, towards the wider Blackmore Vale, they created a screen of green in the summer. Tall stately trucks in the winter. Maybe the central ones measured four or five feet in diameter.

Today, the view, on a clear day, extends all the way across Dorset to Bulbarrow Hill. Close by, no tall trees to obscure the view. Far off, on the top of the hill the telecommunication masts tower above the trees. Across the valley there’s nothing but treetops to be seen but few if any Elms.

The fate of the Elm trees is a sad one. Dutch elm disease wiped them out. From the 1960s, more than 25 million trees died across the UK. Other species have taken the opportunity to occupy the spaces left by the Elms. However, hedgerows have been lost as framing practices have changed. Trees a plenty but not so many as past times.

This week is national tree week[1]. I didn’t even know that until a visit to the RHS[2] at Wisley. I’ve had an RHS membership for about three years. Any time I’m in the vicinity of Wisley, I make a visit. That’s not been so easy of recent. The monstrous road works, planting a motorway junction of vast proportions in the area has been awkward to navigate. Nature is trying to coexist with traffic, tarmac and concrete.

I learnt that there are a couple of thousand trees at Wisley. Lots of variety. Being RHS, a staff to maintain them in good condition. Experts with chainsaws and ropes to prune the dead limbs and make the most of any wood that comes their way. What I’m referring to is a highly entertaining lecture given by one of the young arborists who manages trees on their site.

There’s a lot more to managing trees than first meets the eye. Safety is one of the major considerations. Especially with an extensive garden that receives thousands of visitors. Rotten branches falling from great hight are not something to wish to encounter unexpectedly.

I get the distinct impression that, like a Cirque du Soleil show, arborists love nothing more than hanging upside down from flimsy looking branches. Constructing elaborate schemes of ropes to navigate the treetops. With pride, the lecturer had videos of scampering amongst the high tree limbs. Not a place I’d go. They’re a cross between tree hairdressers and surgeons. Rearranging, chopping, crafting, diagnosing and amputating at the same time. Not a job for a heavy-set person who has a phobia of hights.

The message here, for the week, is not to take the wonderful diversity of trees in the UK for granted. They do need nurturing and replacing. For the most part they do nothing but good.

[1] https://treecouncil.org.uk/seasonal-campaigns/national-tree-week/

[2] https://www.rhs.org.uk/

Adapting to Climate Change

Owned experience is more real than the theory, or the machinations of commentators. Yes, I know climate change and the weather are two different phenomena. My local weather is a part of the equation, even if it has its own life. Living in a shallow river valley in southern England there’s bound to be an element of a microclimate. A little warmer than the sounding chalk hills.

Last night, the rain fell. At about 3am it was ponding the roof tiles. Coming down like stair rods. Dislodged moss on the decking. Making the dark seem darker. Soaking the garden. Water butts that spent most of the year empty, full again. Whereas the water table sank to a depth in the mid-summer. My garden’s soil was hard. Compacted dust and flint in places. Now, it’s as if the ground water has risen to the surface. No place untouched. Grass as green as it has been. Squelching underfoot.

What’s chiming with me is the marked difference from past times. It’s November. The year is coming to an end. For decades past it would be perfectly normal for there to have been at least one hard frost. One of those occasions when the water in the bird bath becomes a solid frozen block. A glistening white cover of the grass. An end to the growing season, for sure.

Looking out of my kitchen window I still have plants in flower. Piles of sodden leaves. With one or two trees still reluctant to give up theirs. The seasons reluctant to move on. More chance of flooding than frozen ground.

Climate change predictions are that rain is likely to become heavier in this part of the UK. Floods to become a more regular occurrence of warming winters. The ground absorbing much more rainwater. River levels staying higher for longer.

What impact this seasonal flip-flop will have is open to question. Dry summer ground as hard as concrete. Wet winter ground constantly saturated. A more rapid change from one to the other.

For a gardener, certainly, this needs to be considered when planting. Seeing what plants will flourish in these changing circumstances. At least, I did invest well in one new willow tree this autumn. It’s about eight foot high and leafless. I’m expecting it to bust into life in next spring.

POST: As if I’d called it, the temperature has started to drop. 2C this morning. So, maybe the point is not that the seasons are changing, which they are, but more the moment of transition from one to the other is changing.

Seasonal Shifts

I’m going to accept the theory that Halloween is a celebration of the dead derived from pagan times. It’s a regular festival that Christians cleverly converted into a Christian holiday. I don’t think Europeans started the remembrance of our ancestors. That act maybe as ancient as modern humans. What a good time to mark a transition. At a change of the seasons. Nature shows us the power of death and rebirth most acutely as the leaves fall and winter’s cold winds sweep in. To think the trees that invested all the energy in making leaves cast them aside. But they do so confident that one day there will be springtime again.

Hunker down as the clocks go back on the last Sunday of the month. Slightly lighter in the mornings. Darkness falling as soon as the workday ends. It’s a time for adjustment. That’s one marker of season change in the northern hemisphere.

I’m ready. Already there’s a distance from the summer months of parched grass and constant watering. Withering plants and rock-hard ground. It’s as if they never existed. I need my wellington boots to walk about the lawn. Watering can hung-up till next year.

Warmth is ebbing away. The exception being the moments when the low sun still baths me in bright sunlight. In the shad there’s no such relief. Shadows grow longer. I’m in a mood to prepare for winter. Ruffling through the bedroom wardrobe for warmer cloths.

Where does the TOG number come from? It’s that time of year. Time to TOG-up. Take the summer duvet and replace it with the winter one. When the temperature outside starts to hang below single figures it’s time to change the duvet. It’s obvious. Change to a fuller warmer one. Warmer by numbers but what does that mean? Do I need to know?

Try telling the kids of today. I grew-up in a house without central heating. Grabbing an extra woolly blanket. Creating a secure cocoon. Desperate not to break the seal. That was the bedroom of my youth. Howling winds and rain swept across the open fields. Thick farmhouse walls kept them at bay. Shakey sash windows equalised the temperature inside and out.

Now, piles of blankets are outdated. Primitive times. Generous heating and a fluffy duvet insulate me from the tormented autumn weather. The passing south westerly storms.

Keeping it simple the higher the TOG the better the insulation. Not that the word TOG has a scientific meaning. However, underlying it is a system of measurement but it’s almost pointless relating the number crunching. I would have thought the T in TOG would be “thermal” but no.

It’s a slang word. I do it every day. I’m putting on my togs. My gear. My garments. My clothes. It’s that basic.

Autumn’s Arrival

It’s the season of mellow fruitfulness. Hey, I didn’t even know I was quoting Keats with that apt short line. It’s so embedded in my thoughts.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing Sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;[1]

It’s so appropriate to the day. To the week. We are in that spot of the year that marks a transition. Summer is behind us. The ground is covered with acorns and conkers. Leaves are contemplating the end of the duties. A mist hangs over the grass in the early hours.

Just to be clear, I don’t live in a picture box thatched cottage in some hidden English valley. That said, from one long-standing vine, this year, I’ve collected a mass of grapes. This vine, being so deep rooted, it hasn’t suffered the desert like conditions that prevailed for weeks.

Autumn can be a wonderful season. For a few weeks the siren sound of the winter’s coming is held in suspension. There’s time to think about whether to turn on the heating or not as the temperature dips at night.

Transitions are political too. In Britain, it’s the season of conferences. A time for the faithful to gather and spend a few days running around like headless chickens. A harvest of policy papers and last-minute speeches. Condemnation of opponents. Accolades for friends and good company. Tee-shirts, hats and posters plying slogans old and new.

It’s difficult to explain. Might seem tiresome to those who have never spent 4-5 days at the seaside in September but mostly indoors or waving banners in the sea breeze. This week the Sun has blessed all concerned. Those of us who went to the south coast to share time with family and those who went to change the world.

For the party of government, they may be asking:

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

The optimism of last year has dramatically subsided. Now, they seem like the Mars company marketing gurus who rebranded the Marathon chocolate bar to Snickers[2]. A lesson in how to cause confusion for no material gain. Labour’s problem is clear. The chocolate bar is a good national trend indicator. Off the shelf, the bars are smaller, but you pay the same price or more for the pleasure. Arresting decline is proving to be difficult.

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

For those who may wonder at this line, Keats didn’t have social media.

[An Aside: AI, and its unsolicited interventions, can be right plonkers. It suggested that I change the grammar of Keats poem. It offered to rewrite the lines above. So, billionaires are spending billions trying to prompt us to rewrite romantic poetry. What a mad mad world.]

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn

[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13873067/real-reason-Snickers-changed-Marathon-chocolate.html

The Intriguing Life of Jackdaws

As the grass turns brown, the sun beats down. Me, I just a lawnmower[1]. Now, that’s probably the daftest lyric that has ever been written in the history of rock. As I look out of the window at the parched grass there’s no way I’d take my lawnmower to it. If I did there would be nothing, but dirt left in its wake. Stubborn deep-rooted weeds and dead moss.

It’s summer. It’s unusually dry. Although, as the sun came up this morning, looking out of the bedroom window, a thin mist covered the ground. That was early. Between 4am and 5am. A thin white mist, low to the ground, must refresh the grass just a little. Most of nature sleeps.

As the morning progresses its not long before one dominant sound fills the air. It’s not the cars on the nearby road. One species of bird has adopted the tall trees, field next door and my garden. They are not a quite bird. To those that know their call is instantly recognisable. Their sound isn’t musical like some birds. It’s an incessant chatter. Loud and repetitious.

Jackdaws are having no trouble despite the dying grass and rock-hard ground. Our community of noisy birds is thriving. I guess their advantage is that they eat just about anything that’s going. Not much concern about predators as they take no care to hide their presence. I’ve seen them happily mocking larger birds. Showing off seems to make them happy.

As far as evolution goes, they have a lot of advantages. Equally agile hopping around on the ground as they are swooping and diving from tall trees. There’s no doubt they have a complex social etiquette. One or two minutes watching how they interact gives this away. Bigger, more mature, birds intimidate the younger ones.

Can’t say I like them much. More that I admire them for being so savvy. Jackdaws look as if they own the place. It’s not my garden. They are saying, we come a go as we please, you can share the space if you like. Sooty black masters of the airspace.

We’ll tolerate each other mainly because we have no other choice. Trying to scare a jackdaw is a fruitless task. They learn quickly. Soon sussing out that they can get the better of you.

As the sun beats down, I lay on my lounger. Listening to the endless chatter. Me, I’m just a bird feeder. Watching as the skies fill with shiny black dots. There for moment and gone the next.

[1] https://genius.com/Genesis-i-know-what-i-like-in-your-wardrobe-lyrics

Strolling

Daily writing prompt
What notable things happened today?
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Mr fox strolled intently across the green field. Apologies, if in fact it’s a Mrs fox that I saw in the early morning light. His was a deliberate, nonchalant stroll. Knowing that tuffs of high grass and reeds provided cover. A stop, quick look around, and then onward. No reason to hurry.

From my window, this was not the first time I’ve seen a fox on his first light stroll. In the bright morning sunlight, there was a sheen coming off his coat. This was clearly a healthy fox. Agile, slender and strong. Unlike shy, less fit town foxes that I’ve seen wandering gardens. No scavenging from waste bins for this smart fellow.

It crossed my mind that prey must be plentiful at this time of year. Later in the day a pack of geese graze this unkempt wet land. Mixing with the Dexters. I’ve seen goslings waddling along behind their parents. Now, I suspect there are fewer of them to waddle.  

A Day at the Bath and West Agricultural Show

It’s a part of my childhood. It’s fascinating to see how it has changed over the decades. There’s hardly a year go by when I don’t go to at least one agricultural show in the UK.

Last year, I visited the Lincoln show and the Newbury show for the first time. Most of the summer rural shows in the UK have a long history that is kept going by an Agricultural Society. The bigger ones have dedicated show sites and some permanent buildings. The smaller ones can be a large field that’s set aside for a couple of days a year. Each show reflects the nature of the farming, the crops, the animals, in its region.

This Friday, my day out was a trip to the Bath and West show[1] in Somerset. The show site is large. Spread over a south facing gently sloping hillside. To the south of the town of Shepton Mallet, at the base of Prestleigh Hill.

That’s my family connection. My mother grew-up on a small farm in Prestleigh. It’s not named on the map anymore as a couple of the buildings are now dwellings. Yew Tree Farm was situated on a dangerous bend on the main A371 road where traffic must veer right as it comes down the hill. The alternative being to hit a wall and end up in the farmyard. If I remember correctly, my grandad got free tickets to the Bath and West as they used one of his fields for a car park. As children we would hop over the fence to go straight to the show.

This year, the ground was as hard as rock underfoot. Spring has been unusually dry. There’s more dust than mud. That’s good for the show. There have been years when the wind and rain have swept the exposed show site and blown down tents and made mini rivers. Making welly boots mandatory.

What has changed? Although this annual event is predominantly a showcase for West Country food and farming it’s gone beyond that formula to become an atypical half-term family day trip. It’s no longer a place where local farmers strike deals with machinery salesman or learn about the latest breeds or cropping methods. That post-war image of mucky tractors and trailers turning up in droves is for vintage postcards.

What’s nice is that there’s something for everyone with an interest in the English countryside. Beekeepers, cider markers (and drinkers), cheese makers, traction engine enthusiasts, rare breeds, heavy horses along with tea and cake in the WI tent.

Sheep started big this year. Cattle and pigs less so. Again, the word is enthusiasts. Breeds rare and commercial ones all cleaned up for display and judging. Handlers, young and old, parading their animals for picky judges to prod and score. Then colourful rosettes displayed with pride.

It’s not a cheap day out for townsfolk and county people anymore. Car parking might be free but the price of entry and just about anything on-site can quickly rack up. Everywhere, even in a field, we have become a cashless society. A tap here, a tap there, no longer do we dig into our pockets for loose change.

For the good weather and crowds, I expect this year’s 3-day event will be evaluated as a great success. Keeping the tradition going.

[1] https://www.bathandwest.com/royal-bath-and-west-show

Protecting Green Spaces

Listening to a Labour Minister use the word “streamlining” I reached for the off switch. My morning radio was bubbling away with a spokesperson justifying changes that remined me of that moment when the Earth was about to be demolished in the HHGTTG. I could imagine him saying; houses must be built because houses must be built.

Labour have been in power for less then a year but more and more they sound like the people they displaced. My thought was, with these recent land planning proposals, what’s the difference between what the Conservatives did and what Labour is doing now?

Let’s go back in time. One of the most dreadful planning changes of the past was the selling-off of school playing fields[1]. Green space, often surrounded by dwellings were erased. Countrywide, bricks, concrete and tarmac were prioritised over green spaces, local sports and nature. Not much to guess as to why the national is not as healthy as it should be.

It’s not new to say – what we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in favour of building more affordable houses where they are needed. It’s eminently reasonable to provide support for small and medium sized housebuilders. There are spaces that can take more dwellings provided the associated infrastructure comes along too.

By law, let’s not tip the balance in a way makes us all poorer. Our natural environment has taken one hell of a bashing in my lifetime. One of the indicators is the bug count. If I travelled any distance in the summer, in the early 1980s, in my bright red Sunbeam Imp, it wouldn’t be long before I’d need to stop to clean the windscreen of dead bugs. Today, drive as far as you like through the English countryside and there’s no such problem to address.

Labour’s Minister doing the morning rounds, spoke from a prepared script. Everything is above board. Government consulted on the proposals. Houses must be built because houses must be built. Consultations are fine. However, doing it and ignoring what people are saying is tantamount to manipulative deception.

Concreting over nature is not the way to go. Especially for small pockets of green spaces that still bring nature into cities, towns and villages. Infill and the eradication of small green spaces is just as bad as the momentous school playing field mistakes. It’s a one way trip. Watering down measures designed to protect nature is not the way to go.

Pushing forward with an aggressive approach to building foregoes long-term benefits for short-term political gain and blinkered treasury wishes. With the lessons learned over decades, priority to protecting our natural environment should not be sacrificed[2]. The Labour Government’s Planning & Infrastructure Bill needs amendment. Let’s hope that happens.

[1] https://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-08-17/how-previous-governments-compare-on-selling-off-playing-fields/

[2] https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/planning-bill-breaks-labours-nature-promises-say-wildlife-trusts-and-rspb