Day 115

"A snake came to my water-trough on a hot, hot day, and I, in pyjamas for the heat, to drink there..."

I remember how I fell in love with D H Lawrence, all his poetry, all his books, he had such a romantic notion. 

There was a certain purity about our upbringing (my generation) that will never be repeated, because of tv and playstation and youtube and ALL the myriad visual stimuli bombarding children nowadays.  I know I make a bold statement but I believe this way of life, the new technology, the glut of 'information' on the web and beyond, is detrimental in its desensitization of the human soul.  Such a population will not be willing to go out of their way for their fellow human beings or indeed fellow creatures on the planet, because they will lack compassion, they will lack the ability to be shocked, they will not be horrified by awful things because they have known about them all since they were little, they have seen ultra-violence in movies, tv shows and in video games.  Humanity has stepped away from the earth: about 90% of the population  in developed countries now live in cities and towns, whereas 100 years ago 90% lived in the country, close to the earth, knowing nature and her rhythms.  

The Essex County Beekeepers' Association, to which I belong, has education as one of its priorities, so often one or two of the beekeepers will go along to a fair or a school and demonstrate the equipment, explain a bit about bees and beekeeping, and hand out honeysticks, the favourite part for the children.  In many cases they have found that children have no idea where honey comes from and some have never even tasted honey before.  Some kids remarked that they didn't like honey because the "bees poop it out"!

I was raised growing my own vegetables in my own little patch of garden from when I was about 6 or 7, proud of my produce, a few beans or some lettuces we managed to save from the slugs and snails.  My British grandfather had a market garden all his life, and kept bees.  I remember when we visited them when I was little, what a gentle soul he was.  I have a clear memory of him lifting me up to see a common house martin's nest above the door to his shed, beautifully constructed from mud-pellets collected from puddles, with the baby birds sitting safely inside, their bright curious eyes just visible to mine.  Gramp didn't believe in a Christian god, but in Nature, dealing with animals and plants his whole life.   My own father often quoted the saying, " The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God's heart in a garden, than anywhere else on earth."

So my portrait today is me in my beloved meadow, a picture Emma took of me last year.   

Today I ran only 1.65 miles (2.65km) in the late afternoon, before we went out to supper with friends.  The same cottontail was in the same place, near the beehives, and we both stopped a while to regard one another again.