REFLECTIONS: You hypocrite!

The weather over recent weeks has not been good;  it has generally been overcast, windy and quite cold for the time of year and every now and again we have had rain.  Today, however, the sun was shining and as I looked out of my window across the garden I thought “my goodness, what  a mess it looks, how long has it been since I mowed the lawn?”. The lawn was white with daisy flowers with yellow dandelion-like cat's-ear mingled in. 

The weather has not been good, as I said, and of course, we have just been through ‘no-mow May’ to allow flowers to prosper so insects have nectar sources to feed on. We have a “This is a wildlife garden” sign by the front door and so I felt I had enough excuses for the way it looked but it could not stay like that, lawns are supposed to be green. To make things worse, as my gaze wandered towards the flower beds, I could see numerous cat’s-ear and if they were to seed just what would we have next year?

Anyway, with the weather being better today, I had no excuse, it was time to get the mower out and cut the grass and then do a bit of weeding. An hour or so later it looked much tidier and cared for with a nice green lawn and those invasive cat’s-ears gone; a good morning's work.

After lunch I decided on a walk and, not wanting to take the car out (petrol is now £1.89 per gallon!), the circuit around the local lanes from home seemed a good option. It features a lovely stretch of path between hedgerows and verges full of flowers and is a good place for butterflies, damselflies, bees, hoverflies and more.  

It was a pleasant walk despite the blustery wind and I eventually reached my favourite stretch and as I turned the corner to approach it I was dismayed at the sight in front of me. Both sides of the footpath, right up to the hedges, had been cut by the farmer. All the flowers were gone and along with them the multitude of insect species that feed on them. I felt really angry.

There seemed no acceptable reason for such wanton destruction of a natural environment, nothing had been achieved and everything had been lost. We are told that it is farmers who care about, and care for, the countryside and yet a farmer could do this. Goodness knows, there is enough written and said about the need to encourage flowers for our pollinators to thrive as we need them to also pollinate our crops. What on earth was this farmer thinking? Did he have nothing better to do with his time? There was just one question I really wanted to ask him; WHY?

As I stood there surveying the scene with that strong feeling of anger inside me a thought started to force its way into my mind. What had I spent the morning doing? Had I not done at home exactly what the farmer had done here? I tried to comfort myself with thoughts that what I had done was on a very small scale compared to this and there is a difference between a small piece of land around a dwelling and open countryside. They are not the same at all are they? 

I failed to convince myself. The conclusion I came to was that I was guilty as charged; a hypocrite!