I have to admit that I wrote that title with the tune of No More Heroes by The Stranglers in my mind. I suppose you have to be a certain age and have mis spent your youth in a certain way to have a Stranglers tune spring to mind when you’re thinking about hedgehogs. Gawd – 1977 and 13 years old…..
I digress.
Well, it’s approaching the end of 2020 and I’ve been sat outside enjoying a bright frosty morning. One of those beautiful winter mornings with the remnants of snow on the ground, frozen solid by a hard overnight frost and a bright, low winter sun casting a pink glow over everything.
I’m in the process of building an outdoor kitchen and dining area in anticipation of summer evenings when we can put it to good use. I’ve had this in mind since I first moved to Smithy Brook in 2003 and I’ve finally found the time to get on with it. Part of the design includes a timber deck overhanging the brook where we can sit and enjoy the sound of the water whilst we eat.
Although I’m still a little way off completing the works – the final paving can’t go down until the temperature rises above freezing, I took the opportunity this morning to sit and enjoy a coffee with my legs dangling over the side of the deck and soak up the view.
Whilst I was sat there I found myself chatting to Bruce the Spruce about something that’s kept tugging at my mind recently, which is, where are all the flat hedgehogs?
I realised recently that in the areas of North and West Yorkshire that I spend most of my time I just don’t see squashed hedgehogs in the roads anymore. I’m not sure when things changed but I would think that up until around 10 years ago dead hedgehogs were a daily sight all year round. I would think that almost every day I would see several dead in the roads as I went about my business. Now I can’t remember the last time I saw one – dead or alive.
I suppose the initial thought would be ‘great – we aren’t killing hedgehogs with our cars anymore’ but of course as it’s highly unlikely that hedgehogs have learned about road safety, the real reason we aren’t seeing them on the roads any more is because of a massive decline in their numbers. A quick google search confirms that numbers across the UK have dropped from around 30million at the turn of the 20th century to around 1 million now. That decline is simply staggering to comprehend.
Now I know that virtually every time we watch any kind of TV program about the natural world nowadays it always seems to end with a piece about impending environmental doom and a somewhat trite suggestion we can stop this by building a bee hotel in our back garden.
If you’re anything like me those programs always leave me feeling frustrated and powerless. It always seems so obvious to me that whilst it’s certainly no bad thing to reduce chemical use in our gardens and to make them as wildlife friendly as possible, it’s what happens on the 23 million acres of agricultural land in the UK that is really going to make the difference.
Of course this is where we’ve got ourselves into a vicious cycle. We – the consumer have become used to cheap meat, fruit and vegetables that are all uniform in size and without a trace of any living creature ever having taken a nibble out of them. The supermarkets – who created the illusion that we could have this in the first place are eager to stock up their shelves with spotlessly clean, brightly coloured, perfectly proportioned produce that shows no hint of ever being grown in soil. This leaves the farmer with little choice but to grow only the varieties of fruit and vegetables that will produce the required visual perfection, giving little thought to flavour, and of course ensuring that slugs, snails, insects and birds that might take a nibble out of any of their produce are promptly removed from their land. On top of the burden of producing visual perfection comes the constant downward price pressure applied to farmers by the supermarket buyers. Constantly cutting costs requires employing fewer staff, investing in bigger and more complex machinery to sow, spray and harvest crops and requiring the removal of hedgerows to create the massive fields needed to operate these sizes of machinery in. The result is thousands of acres of land under monoculture with virtually nothing to sustain the massive diversity of wildlife we would have found co-existing with agriculture only a generation ago.
Of course there are lots of great organisations and people working tirelessly to address these issues. Raising awareness and putting pressure on government to act. Whilst we can all play our part where possible by being more discerning in our shopping habits – buying local – buying organic etc we have to be realistic about the limitations imposed on many families by both time and financial poverty. We aren’t all able to pay a little more for organic produce or spend a morning browsing a local farmers market. For many a quick dash around the local supermarket after work with their eyes peeled for the lowest prices is the norm. I believe that it will require government action before anything changes at the kind of scale we really need to make a substantial difference and I will happily support those working towards this end.
For myself though I believe all change starts with me. I am now approaching a quarter of a century since I made the decision to live a more spiritual way of life. Never an easy path to tread, I remember one of the AA guys I spent a lot of time with in the first year of my sobriety used to say ‘remember that every time you point a finger at someone else you have three more fingers pointing back at you’. So if I point my finger at farmers, governments or supermarkets and say they need to change how they operate I need only look at my pointing hand to see those other three fingers pointing back at me, and, whilst I have little power over others actions I have full control over my own.
So, looking at myself, I think the best contribution I can make on a personal level is in the way I live. I shall continue to try and be as self sufficient as possible, growing as much food as we can at Smithy Brook and also looking at ways to freeze and preserve our produce to see us through the leaner months. We will increase the amount of non food planting we do with more native flowers and shrubs both to make our home more beautiful but also more diverse. We shall increase our efforts to tread lightly where the wildlife that we share this beautiful spot with are concerned. Pragmatically supporting wildlife where we can (feeding birds and squirrels), doing as little harm as possible when we need to stop our crops being destroyed (netting brassicas rather than spraying) and building bloody high fences to try and keep Mr Fox and Mr Badger from eating our poultry!
More than anything though I would like to look at ways to share what we do with others who may not think of themselves as gardeners. I’m not sure how we can do this but in 2021 I shall be looking at whether it is possible to perhaps connect with families, teens or children (Michelle is a teacher) who might like to learn a little about what we do and maybe share in some of what we produce. I love the idea – I just need to work out the logistics of making it happen.
Well, that’s my thoughts as we head into the new year. I shall continue to support those who are seeking to change the world but I will concentrate most of my efforts on seeking to change myself.
Happy New Year!
