A Time to Dance

Lat May I sat at the trusty – though somewhat battered by the three-year-old fella – kitchen table to write about a time to grow. Well, talk about an understatement. Where do I start?

Leaving the comfort of my well-worn battle ground of bogs and trying to get them restored was a moment filled with mixed emotion. Was I overly institutionalised? Was I too specialist? Was I too brow-beaten by the winds in the business world where nature came at the bottom of a sad and pitiful pecking order? At the National Biodiversity Conference last year I listened with great intent to eve

Red sky at night - flying over the Irish Sea,
looking back towards the west (Oct 2019).  

ry word of our inspirational flame-bearer – President Higgins. I’m not ashamed to admit that I near wept the whole way through his speech. Whether he wrote it or not, his delivery and his spoken words of camaraderie, respect and understanding for us ‘weary in the trenches folk’ hit me right in the core. I know I wasn’t alone. Sometimes we don’t know if we can go on.

With all these questions in my head, I walked on. I followed my gut and stepped off a corporate motorway onto a rugged path, with a well self-enforced speed limit, that I had never been on before. Scared? – does a duck quack? Excited? Levels were off the Richter scale, or that was nausea??? Free? As a bird. Think - off the north coast of Erris and an un-limited blue sky stretching over the horizon. Think John Lennon Free as a Bird. 

Six months later, how I have grown! Not physically (though I have spent a lot of time on my ass sitting and reading). More like - grown back into my curious, wonder and awe skin, back onto new neural pathways in my head, wriggled out of narrowing avenues and out into the limitless space of possibility. And how is that, says you? Well, I’ve had the time to read (part of the job - what a gift!). And it was science, journals, economics, philosophy, and the crossover of nature and business. Grasping nettles and taking the sting out them with understanding. Still plenty of nettles out there, takes time.

I’ve met some awesome people on this path – there are serious (wow) warriors out there armed with knowledge and understanding, and passion and fire for nature and people, together. Even to brush-off the energy of that fire feeds my own and brings to me great hope where I was probably a bit wanting. Maybe even more importantly, I got to spend more time with the hardy warriors I knew before but never really got to spend time with – you know who you are. Both these close encounters with awesome warriors have helped to rebuild – restore? – my own source of fire, to keep me in the dance. Nature’s worth dancing for, though in my heart of hearts - this I know - nature dances us.

Am I still scared? Yeah, who isn’t a bit scared if they are honest. Life is uncertain, but I have today. And tomorrow will be a gift. Am I excited? Even more than I thought I could be. The future needs us all to work together, from every millimetre of this intricate web. Not one more important than the other, though some can bear a more powerful blow to get us on the right course. And plenty of heavy lifting for us all to do, so hang in there. 

Free? Still flying, high. 

An ecologist returns to work

Spot the first Bluebell..
it's there under holly's nose..

Saturday. How sweet the word. No rushing around to pack the bag for the baby for her day with her new mammy. No frantic trundling of an over excited Holly into the car to go to the bog. No fumbling with a collection of keys to make sure I have the one for the door of the office. No updates to the man on what's in the bag and why, and the key messages for the day's agenda. None of that order. Let mayhem reign today and let time flow without punctuation points. 

By this time already, after a few hours already of Baa Baa Black Sheep and much gurgling and wriggling, all are back sleeping again (one never actually woke up, yet ;)) and I am blissfully reunited with a sweet silence that hangs over a far too neglected writing platform. Oh dear laptop, oh what a week!

Working as an ecologist in this world is challenging. For reasons known and unknown, the ecologist always seems to be on the back foot - always struggling to find a voice within a world that is pressurised on all sides by social and economic needs. For sure, there is a welcome heightened and heightening awareness of the benefits of the natural world - our natural capital - about us, and certainly it's not all about drain, develop and harvest. But you - the ecologist, or the one who cares - really has to keep the foot to the floor and keep pushing those values, reminding all of the responsibility we bear to preserve and maintain that value, and keeping that message to the fore of all thinking. For what value a sterile and empty space devoid of life to anyone? 

This week I was back out, walking over an Irish bog, meandering through edges of tranquil birch and then to be surrounded by sky larks in full song. It was great to be back - back in the wild - whatever patches of wilderness that remain. But there, combined with the elation of re-uniting with all that orchestra of wild song, there was the sadness that comes with the sharp and painful reminders that sometimes despite best intentions, the human need to develop, drain and harvest, still wins over the astounding value of nature. 

The future

Time to get back to work indeed. We get to explore some of these ideas next Tuesday in the Mansion House in Dublin - Paddy Woodworth will be talking us through the ideas behind his book Our Once and Future Planet, and some of us will be commenting and debating the ideas contained within. The discussion is for everyone - not just misty eyed and well-intentioned ecologists and nature lovers - because the issues of restoration, conservation, nature management will affect us all. Not least the small ones that come after all of us. Sadly, no skylarks in Dublin's fair city but there'll certainly be a few seagulls ;)

http://www.greenfoundationireland.ie/ecological-restoration-the-best-conservation-strategy-for-the-climate-change-century/

The Good Earth

It's back to the beginning for us in the garden, back to basics. And how better to get there than a fine March spring day with my two favourite gardeners ;) Well, granted Holly does just lie back in her various yoga poses while we battle with the tools of the trade...it's a dog's life indeed..

July 2011 - still a work in progress ;)

There's something deeply primitive and intensely satisfying about digging the Holly Cottage garden soil. I guess it's because, for us, it's been just two years since we first turned the sod on the otherwise rock hard and tree-root ridden earth that pre-dated our arrival. It's hard to believe it, but when I look back on the photos, I think wow - we did that. We transformed a blank canvas to a 3D kaleidoscope of  food and floral bounty. Deeply humbling that those amazing plants and flowers and fruits and vegetables actually grew where we asked them to grow. And without demand, for the last two years. 

In the beginning -
that's me in the corner :)

The first year (2011), we just took a chance. About a week solid of digging a small patch not more than 8m x 6m, and then we trusted in some hard earned experience of veteran gardeners. In broad daylight (!) I raided the chicken coop of the Cappaduff farm and loaded with a bag of chicken poo, stole my way back to the Holly Cottage garden and spread the golden (stinking) gold dust. 

March 2011

We hadn't a clue really and we just followed instinct and the back of seed packets to guide us in our baby gardener steps. That first year - we had broccoli that would give the giant oak trees a run for their bark, giant sunflowers with  over 15 heads, peas to feed an army and spuds to feed a hungry couple for at least until the following spring. All from nothing. But nothing comes from nothing. 

The ground that had once been home to several leylandii trees - OK to look at but not much nutritional value - was just waiting to supply us with veggies and fruit for the year. That's the magic. That's the Good Earth. That's the soil that might well be one of the least understood systems on our planet. That's what Tony Juniper in 'What has nature ever done for us?' tells me. We rely on the soil - from Africa to China to inner Ireland - for over 90% of our food. It's a thin layer of so-called dirt - a derogatory name that beguiles it's power to make or break the non hunter gathering state of Homo sapiens. About a tablespoon of arable soil is home to more bacteria than there are people on earth...and those bacteria comprise representatives of some 20,000 species. One tablespoon. One tablespoon of soil. Mind blowing. Forget Mars exploration - let's get back to the ground beneath our feet. Surely it's worth understanding better what we are losing annually through soil degradation, erosion and pollution so that we can appreciate it's magic better and sustain food production for the 7 billion or so of us that are here today? And let's not forget the extra 2 billion set to join the growing global table by mid-century.  

July 2012..bigger and better

Anyway. Back to the ground outside our own door. Last year was a bit of a let down for us, easy to blame the weather - it did play a big part - but we certainly learned about blight (no famine thankfully), wind burned peas and disappointing Brussels sprouts. Slug anyone? Bumper crop there ;)

2013 is going to be a great year, I can feel it in my optimistic weather sensors. And this year, there was no back breaking digging, no endless picking of stones and rock from previous owners, and no digging of pesky tree roots. The soil is ready for planting - a perfect loose brown crumb, with last year's recycled food compost dug in along with a generous spread of chicken manure. It's beautiful. Not a plant in sight except for spring broccoli and hidden garlic bulbs waiting for the sun, but what a start and what a promise. This Good Earth just keeps on giving.