Walking the straight and narrow

[Anne Kilmer]

Dale Roberts/Bill Yule wrote:

>   We are all witnessing the homoginization of the earth at the hands of
> human activity that favors a depauperate flora and fauna that is generalized
> in habitat requirements, omnivorous in appetite and fecund in reproductive
> ability.  Don't you think?
> 
>                               Bill Yule


Well, witnessing is a strong word. Most of us are resisting it 
energetically, which is what has called us together here.

I do think that if you put out bird feeders, the least you can do is eat 
the pigeons. I have delegated the pine marten to do that in Ireland, my 
bit towards bio-diversity.

Monocultures do not work, as we well know, without the use of potent 
pesticides, antibiotics etc., and Nature revenges itself in many ways.
War, famine, pestilence ...


Perhaps Candide was right, and the thing to do, rather than solving the 
world's problems, is to cultivate your garden. I have trampled a swath 
through the nettles, cleared off the roof of the tool shed, which is 
perspex and had a four-inch mat of Lawson's cypress needles on it, and 
can admire the bright light in there ... which will probably kill the 
resurrection fern and maidenhair fern growing on the wet rock walls.
No-impact gardening is not a possibility, and where you clean, you kill.
Oh well.

The nettles will put up new growth, and the Red Admirals and Peacock 
butterflies will be happy. I have yet to see a Tortoiseshell here.

And, for peace of mind, I recite "God's Grandeur" by Gerarg Manley 
Hopkins, which I stored away for times like this. It has slid a bit, in 
fifty years, and I may have a few words wrong.
...
Yet, for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things
And, though the last light down the black west went,
Lo, morning at the brown brink eastward springs
Because the Holy Ghost above the bent
World broods with warm breast, and with, ah, bright wings.

The Gods help those who help themselves, Martin, and success attend your 
efforts.
Anne Kilmer
Mayo, Ireland



 
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