Guilt over her role in concreting the landscape led Deema Assaf to set up Tayyun, dedicated to reforesting one of the world’s most arid countries
— Read on www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/09/greening-the-desert-architect-tayyun-regenerating-jordan-native-forests
Category: Optimism
Softly green.
When the snow melts, the countryside looks flattened . There are tide marks of green along the wet ploughed brown shine of fields and not much else. But along the little stream between the rocks, the moss is in its element.
In the deep valley the moss is plump and luminously green. It covers the rocks and the base of the trees and where water drips down the face of the gully, it makes silent soft waterfalls of damp vegetation. In February, when nothing much else is growing, I am drawn to this wonderful moss, to the few ferns that cling amongst it and to the sound that is swallowed by the myriad fronds.
The Easter Island face of the rock looks down on this miraculous pulse of green in such a dead month and seems to be protecting it . Spring will come and the green will cover the little valley and the fields and the gardens. Until then it waits in this quiet waterfall of thick, thick moss.
111 Trees Per Daughter Changed This Village’s Future
How an unusual ritual led to fewer child marriages, less flooding, a boom in girls’ education — and a cultural transformation.
— Read on reasonstobecheerful.world/india-village-tree-planting-ritual-daughters/
Earth’s ozone layer on course to be healed within decades, UN report finds | Ozone layer | The Guardian
The environmental future can seem bleak: global warming can seem inevitably destructive, but we can turn things around. Banning aerosols worked . Read this good news and hope we can all do the same for CO2 emissions.
Most of atmospheric layer that protects planet from ultraviolet radiation likely to be fully recovered for most of world by 2040
— Read on www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/09/ozone-layer-healed-within-decades-un-report
20 New Frog Species With “Gurgling Stomach” Calls Discovered In Madagascar | IFLScience
Something different on a snowy December day. Dr Mark Scherz was a student of my husband at our last school . A passion for natural history produces amazing results!
When wading knee-deep in mud really pays off.
— Read on www.iflscience.com/20-new-frog-species-with-gurgling-stomach-calls-discovered-in-madagascar-66666
Ages
The seasons have been used as metaphor for human life since the first baby was born in springtime.
It is less obvious that places themselves seem to age with the season’s progression.
Winter is the last season, it is old age and the world seems dead, but of course it is not and nature is just waiting for the spring : for the cycle of life to renew and for life to return.
In spring everything can seem blushingly bare, awkward and gangly like an adolescent; in summer it is noisy and confident; in autumn it is blowsy, brash and colour splashed, but in winter, in real winter, when the snow falls, the street and the field and the very sky seem to belong to another century all together.
The traffic stops, the streets empty, the sky is heavy with feathers floating down.
People move only when they have to and the birds pushing through the white air make the sound of wings . The white roofs are Bruegel and the woodsmoke is from twisted chimneys.
The world seems ancient when it snows. It seems infolded and safe.
In a white winter, the creases are smoothed out and a wise unblemished face is turned up to a beautiful blank sky.
‘That orange, it made me so happy’: 50 poems to lift you in November.
This is a great selection of poetry, some familiar some new to lift the spirit in November. Unfortunately a few of the links take you frustratingly to pay sites, but pass swiftly on and enjoy the selections.
Humour, beauty, solace … the right poem can bring a ray of sunshine. Andrew Motion, Kayo Chingonyi, Tishani Doshi and other poets recommend the verses that lift their spirits
— Read on www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/26/that-orange-it-made-me-so-happy-50-poems-to-boost-your-mood
How a sand battery could transform clean energy – BBC Future
Here is some more really good news for using renewable energy without polluting batteries!
A new way of storing renewable energy is providing clean heat through the long Nordic nights.
— Read on www.bbc.com/future/article/20221102-how-a-sand-battery-could-transform-clean-energy
Back to life after 130 years! Chimney Meadows Nature Reserve: Channel reopens river to wildlife – BBC News
I like to share hopeful news.
This nature reserve is close to my sister in law’s village . A complicated project has opened up part of the Thames to fish to swim and spawn in for the first time in 130 years . How is that for righting a wrong after such a long time?!
Thanks to the EU for funding and local wildlife trusts for having vision and determination to make something better!
A new watercourse has been created at Chimney Meadows Nature Reserve near Bampton in Oxfordshire.
— Read on www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63228082
No roof unused!
This article has really set me thinking again about my own flat garage roof, which could be home to more wild life. The bus shelter roof idea is really taking off and this is the way to go across the world !
Wolves and brown bears among wildlife making exciting comeback in Europe | Rewilding | The Guardian
Now that is what I call very very good news!
In the depth of lockdown, in the winter, we saw a wolf walk down our silent, deserted village street. We live near a forest so it wasn’t too many glasses of wine. It was proof.
: report on species recovery shows how effective legal protection, habitat restoration and reintroductions can be
— Read on www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/27/wolves-and-brown-bears-among-wildlife-make-exciting-comeback-in-europe-aoe
In our hands.
This tiny perfect sliver of life was under the bucket. At first it was coiled like a bracelet in a golden knot, but by the time the photo was taken it was warm and lithe, sliding over my fingers. The sight of one slow worm used to be astounding in our garden ten years ago, but as the garden has grown up and the wild spots and compost heaps have been cultivated, they are increasingly common.
It is heartening to think we must have done one small thing right in our little corner to visibly increase this bit of wildlife.
By the way my hands are not usually so dirty, but they are currently stained from picking up walnuts without any gloves on!
Happy Autumn !
Wild cheetahs to return to India for first time since 1952 | India | The Guardian
We all need good news and this is a wonderful initiative which I really hope works – not just for the cheetahs, but for the whole ecosystem that will be protected in order for them to survive..
Officials announce eight cats will be brought from Namibia in effort to reintroduce animal to its former habitat
— Read on www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/wild-cheetahs-to-return-to-india-for-first-time-since-1952
Spot the dotted chestnut.
Bright in the sun.
The blossom trees held their breath in the snow and the storm and today they exhaled.
The white cherry blossom studs the forest tops and in the orchards, the perfect pink of apple blossom opens out on to the clean pale centre of this most lovely of flowers on this the most perfect of April days.
Things are not always perfect, but in the brief moment when they are, we can rejoice.
Basho , the great Japanese poet famously wrote:
It is with awe
That I behold
Fresh leaves, green leaves
Bright in the sun
To Katya, aged seven, in a bomb shelter in Kyiv | Ben Okri | The Guardian
In a new poem, the novelist and poet Ben Okri writes about what hope can grow out of the destruction in Ukraine
— Read on www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/02/ben-okri-ukraine-poem-to-katya-aged-seven-in-a-bomb-shelter-in-kyiv
‘A striking work of nature’: the search for a rare flower in the Philippines jungle | Plants | The Guardian
Chris Thorogood had to venture deep into the Luzon rainforest to set eyes on the extraordinary Rafflesia banaoana
— Read on www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/27/jungle-flower-rafflesia-banaoana-luzon-philippines
Cabbages and Kings.
These are the last cabbages of the season. They have hung on all winter and have now been picked so the vegetable plot can be rotivated for the new growing season.
I love their tenacity, how they stay green in snow and frost and the complexity of their texture and colours .
The Alsace was once famous for growing huge cabbages, which were shredded for making choucroute or sauerkraut on the other side of the Rhine. The fields were also home to the wonderful Giant Hamster of the Alsace which is just surviving by the skin of it’s rodent teeth in the face of industrialized agriculture: protected from complete extinction in a few tiny reserves.
My best friend, when I lived in Kazakhstan, was a Russian lady with a wonderful garden behind her small house. She grew cabbages and pumpkins and walls of flowers and roses and I often think of that productive and beautiful patch of earth on the edge of the city, where we ate shaslik from the bbq with Uighur friends in the shade of a plum tree.
The Emperor Diocletian was the only Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate power and to step down before he was killed in war or was assassinated . He decided to give up the power of his vast empire and to retire and simply grow cabbages in his garden.
When asked to return to lead his people again he is said to have replied that if you could see my cabbages you would understand the impossibility of the suggestion.
I think some current emperors could learn from this. Growing cabbages is far more noble than going to war, as history has proven. And if no one else will thank you; then maybe the Giant Hamster will.
Seen from a car.
We went driving today along the Rhine river. The Rhine is the artery of industrial Europe: on one side Germany and on the other France and all along this stretch there are vats of hydrochloric acid, vast cement works, gigantic silos of grain, parks of containers full of goods from China and Bangladesh and factories making glass and airplanes and shopping trolleys and everything that we take for granted in our 21st century lives, but don’t want to actually see.
In the water were some swans, pochard and mallard. A canny heron and a few tufted ducks and above was a very early spring sky blowing though a beautiful cloud scape before the storm struck.
Three vignettes stood out.
Before the motorway a small group of people were lifting a wreath of flowers over a memorial to some one killed in the traffic. An elderly lady with two younger men were momentarily frozen in a very private moment of remembrance as we drove on by.
Much further on a tall, dark young man with a large backpack walked very quickly along the motorway verge. He looked tired but purposeful and I wondered how very far he had walked , from where and which side of the river he actually wanted to be on.
On the edge of a village a pétanque court was actually in use. There were dozens of men playing in the normally abandoned sand. Their faces were unmasked and they were animated with competition, excitement and humour .
The great old river is still very much alive.
Thaw.
I know winter is far from over, that February is the coldest, hardest month and is yet to come, but today there was a change of the light . There was a breath of spring somewhere, even if it was only in the blue sky behind the snow clouds and I thought of Edward Thomas’ lovely short poem.
Thaw Edward Thomas 1917?
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
Good news for the cutest, rarest cat
Make sure you watch the YouTube clip.
Elusive Andean cat, thought to exist only in extremely remote rocky outcrops, caught on camera close to Santiago city
— Read on www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/10/most-endangered-andean-cat-americas-found-living-on-outskirts-of-chilean-capital-santiago-aoe
The last taboo
It used to be that sex was the thing no one talked about and now not talking about it is considered weird, but still no one wants to talk about death. My theory is that somehow we consider that just by thinking or talking about it, this will make it more likely to happen. Well, just like taxes it is the only inevitable thing in life and I do think about the practicalities of it occasionally.
I don’t want my last action to be pollution of the earth, or sky so I am delighted to find out about Dutch mushroom coffins that turn your body into compost swiftly and with style!
I also love that the company calls purchasers of their idea ” future trees”.
The future really can be green!
Here is an article to
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/17/europe/loop-mycelium-mushroom-coffin-eco-funeral-spc-intl/
Good bee news!
Bees have had a tough time in Europe, so it is excellent to read about this uninfected wild colony. I especially like the fact that these bees are so peaceful they can walk on your hands without stinging !
Small World.
There are so many environmental problems facing the world that I have to admit to feeling often overwhelmed . The news gives us the big picture and our own eyes and ears show us the reality in our own backyard. My safe place is the garden and so I nurture it and I celebrate it, but it is so very small .
I can’t even protect the hedgehog that feeds in it, or the blackbird that sings over it, as they need more space than I can ever provide . When they leave my garden they can be strimmed or shot or just go hungry. The moths that I identify so diligently need places to pupate and leaves to eat. The red kite that soars overhead needs voles to eat and the voles need rough ground to burrow in and the bats that weave the night together, need old trees to sleep in and safe roofs to bring their babies up in.
The sky and the earth do not belong to everybody, what ever magical thinking we may indulge in. The earth can be covered in concrete, sprayed with poisons and ploughed to dust. The sky can be emptied of the trees that should be swaying in it and the clouds can be full of unbreathable pollution.
So, shall I just plant taller hedges? Stay sane by staying small? Plug my ears to the sound of encroaching construction, chain saws and crop sprayers?
I have started with my husband and very knowledgeable neighbours to catalogue every hedge and tree in the village . We hope this might eventually stop the grubbing up and chopping down that happens on daily basis in the name of tidiness and profit.
We have to have faith . That is all we have.
Cathy's real country garden 
You must be logged in to post a comment.