I
have a little helper once a week now. She may only be nineteen months old and
it might all take a lot longer to do but she has great potential as a poultry
keeper and shepherdess. With a little training she might also become a
gardener. Wednesdays belong to my granddaughter Olivia. She joins me quite
early in the morning as I open up the chickens and the ducks and check the
sheep. She toddles across the field, waits while I turn off the electric fence,
toddles into the chicken run and watches intently as I open the flap to the
coop and the birds spill over each other to get out. I watch her, (as only a
nan-nan does) as she stands in the middle of the flock of hungry, clucking hens
as I collect the eggs and sort out their food. Then it is the field again and
into the duck enclosure and a repeat performance as the ducks scurry across to the
pond. Straight in, heads down, tails up, ripples on the water and lots of
chuckles from a small person.
We
then check the sheep; a long walk for someone with little legs, but these are
friendly Shetlanders and they cross the field to say good morning and stand
still for Olivia to stroke their tight springy wool.
This
was my childhood too. I was born here and I grew up surrounded by these hills,
this valley, this same sky and this chalk grey soil that sticks to my boots as
I move around. I probably never realised how lucky I was as a child to live
here surrounded by pigs, chickens and growing things but some sort of chemistry
took place because I loved it. I missed it desperately when I was away from it,
and when I returned a long time ago, I stopped still and grew roots. I am
tethered here.
Boring?
Yes. Some people travel, others stay. And I am glad I did because, something from
here has rubbed off on me; something which has opened my eyes to what an
amazing world we are surrounded by. It feels like an extra sense; a fifth
dimension and I have always wanted to share it.
Perhaps,
that is why I spent a lot of time trying to show children how incredible our
natural world is, trying to foster a connection between them and what is around
them so they appreciate it, because from appreciation grows love and the urge
to protect. If you don’t connect with something then you don’t care about it.
Today we spend more time watching virtual reality than watching sunsets, and
this connection with the natural world is slipping away from us and with it the
desire to look after the planet on which we live.
We
need to rebuild that connection. We need to protect our world, our home, perhaps
more at this particular moment in time than ever before. Our planet is now in
the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals in the past
half-billion years. We are currently experiencing the worst spate of species
die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Although
extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of
about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we are now losing
species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens becoming
extinct every day. The future is bleak with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all
species possibly heading toward extinction by the middle of this century.
I
guess I want my granddaughter to feel this connection. I failed with my
children, I was too busy bringing them up! This is my second chance. Which is
why, as we sat munching biscuits, I was pointing out the great tits balancing
on the bird feeder.
I
guess I also want her to learn about how we grow things, and how we rear our
food; where it comes from (and I am not talking here about the shelves of the
nearest supermarket). I feel I need to provide her with a survival kit for the
future. Others will equip her for life in a fast-moving technological world, I
want to give her knowledge that will help her if that world collapses around
her and she needs to go back to basics with a handful of seed and a spade without
a computer or a lithium battery to help.
Because
her future scares me. Last year the International Panel for Climate Change
predicted that we have just twelve years to reduce our carbon output dramatically
if we are to limit our global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. Such a rise is
not good but it would make life on earth bearable. If it goes above this figure
the future for us as a species, and the future of everything that lives on this
earth is bleak beyond our imagination.
At
the moment things are not looking good; there is denial, ignorance,
complacency. Our government is obsessed and immobilised by Bexit, local
government is poorly equipped to deal with crisis and more preoccupied with
scoring points off its political opponents than literally stepping in to save
the world and the vast majority of people have no idea of the scale of change
that needs to take place in their daily lives if we are to get close to lifting
the dark clouds that are building on the horizon.
Like
many other people I feel so helpless to change anything. I can get involved in
a local group that are pushing for our county and district councils to declare
a climate emergency, I can take to the streets with a banner, I can try to
reduce my own carbon footprint, I can plant a tree but I can’t overturn the
world, shake it, scream at it to wake up and really seriously do something. I
can’t close down oil fields, decommission gas power stations, cover a country
in wind turbines, plant continents of trees, persuade people to stop consuming
so much. I can’t save this amazing, intricate world and the beautiful things in
it that I love from destruction.
All
I can do is hug my granddaughter close, whisper I am sorry to her, pray and
show her how to sow a seed in a pot.
