Just after Christmas I received my usual email from Wikipedia asking for a donation. As usual, I sent them a donation via PayPal and received their usual grateful reply with the familiar message that I was one of the 2% of users who give a donation to them. I claim no virtue for my donation as I can afford it, but the thought came to me that a few pounds is a small price to pay for the information I find when researching subjects of personal interest.
From the works of Thomas Aquinas to the Earths’ condition during the late Pleistocene Age, Wiki generally offers trustworthy information to which we may apply our minds and form views with a reasonable historical perspective.
My thoughts now move now from the world stage of Wikipedia to the parochial stage covered by the Windcross Magazine. We will not be lambing this year, nor do I now have bee-hives to consider. We do however still have a few of our special ‘large’ chickens left over from Christmas. The male birds are always the first to go to customers, neigbours and friends, and this usually means we are left with a few female birds to freeze and keep us in chicken for the year ahead.
This year todate, we have had our usual windy gales and wet weather which reminds me of my annual appeal that readers consider the effect ivy can have as a sail on any tree with roots loosened by rain. Ivy is not parasitic BUT, once its leaves reach the crown of a tree it catches the sunlight and prevents the tree getting the sunshine it needs to make it own sugary food. It will then start to die if you do not help it.
Cut a few inches out of the main stem of the ivy a couple of feet from ground level. This will ensure sunshine for the tree in summer, and prevent it being toppled by wind in the winter. I find a one-handed battery chain saw with a six- or eight-inch finger bar ideal for this task.
I give this advice annually, but as I drive around local lanes I guess that every 250 metres of every hedgerow has at least one tree with ivy in its crown. It is a disturbing sight to see a tree being unnecessarily choked of its life prior to being toppled by the autumn and winter winds.
This makes we wonder why what we used to call ‘looking after the countryside’ but which is now called ‘land management,’ is not as integral a part of our daily life as once it was?
I know that lots of people worry about the ‘global’ picture, and that there are hundreds of thousands of reports published by expensive think-tanks. I also know that there are international bodies producing more and more recommendations on how to keep the planet and its global political and economic systems under control:
Yet there doesn’t seem to be anyone at all interested in controlling the growth of Ivy (Hedera) and Pot holes in the lanes of this Benefice. Such a mismatch of interest and effort between the global and the parochial has consequences which are serious in many ways.
But to cut to the chase, How about every parish council in the benefice offering a bounty to a practical eco-warrior (we used to call this character a country lad or lassie) to prune ivy already present in the crown of a roadside tree? The intention being to thwart the ravages of a plant which unknowingly kills a noble tree long before its allotted span.
PS. I can think of many problems with this proposal. But will pay £50 to help fund the first parish council in the Benefice to implement a workable solution that does not involve paying someone else to solve it.
View from the Pew 