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Eddie and I are keeping on the right path…

3 June 2020 by Simon Barnes 5 Comments

June 2

Gary has been back with his tractor. He’s mowed the paths that run around our eight acres of Norfolk marsh. Done a great job.

It makes an extraordinary difference to the place. The idea is that the marsh runs wild, so that marsh harriers can hunt over and deer can lie up in the thickets — but the paths matter, and not just because they make the walking easier in the relentless growth of June.

The paths transmit a subtle message to any human who comes here. Eddie and I walked, took a seat, watched the swifts, listened to the herons in the heronry and heard a reed warbler strike up. The message from the path was one of welcome. Like the deer and the rest, we have a place here. The path tells us we’re at home.

Like nature reserves run on a somewhat bigger scale, our few acres are for humans as well as wildlife. Deer can live here and we can enjoy their living. The place is an interface between wild and tame. So Eddie and I sat and talked and listened and drank our drinks and were not intruders.

I have often recommended a similar approach to people who think about, say, turning their lawn into a wildflower meadow, but fear it would feel all wrong. Just look a mess. As if nobody cared. Mow a nice welcoming path through the flowers, I say. Make a sitting-place. Now you can enjoy the place for what it is, because the whole thing looks  — and crucially feels — as if it had been done on purpose.

The places where people and wild nature co-exist have a great value. But it’s not exactly a No Man’s Land. The opposite, if anything. If we are to have a wartime metaphor, let’s think of it as the Christmas Truce, when opposing soldiers laid down their weapons and shockingly chose to fraternise. 

Eddie and I walked back. A deer, startled, rose from his resting place and cantered away from us, easily and confidently He too was enjoying the renewed path. 

Wild June 1 (Eddie’s first blog with corrections)

Wild June2 Eddie’s new blog

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Comments

  1. Fran Morley says

    3 June 2020 at 7:07 pm

    It’s great to see your blogs back again. I love to hear the news of your land and everything you see there. I agree with Eddie that the bees love the deep flowers. Ours are loving the foxgloves as well as the catmint. I also agree with the name of the green beetle with the fat thighs.I got a photo of one too this week.

    Reply
  2. Linda Hull says

    3 June 2020 at 9:32 pm

    So very envious of your eight acres. We live in Surrey suburbia with a quarter acre garden but we do our level best to treat it as a small nature reserve. Drives our neighbours barmy,I think,but they are far too polite to say it to our faces! After thirty years’ residence,we have sadly lost our last badger. At one time we had eight . Our foxes are still daily visitors and we have numerous varieties of birds. Our younger daughter does her best to aid the local wildlife in her small garden on a large housing estate in Berkshire but has to put up with the muttering from some neighbours who resent anything that makes their manicured gardens grubby. As both our properties were originally fields and woodland,such shortsightedness is upsetting.

    Reply
  3. Elaine Slee says

    4 June 2020 at 6:48 am

    How lovely! How lucky you are! But then, to an extent we make our own luck or at least help it along to create a life we want. Thank you for telling us about your day. I was right there alongside you and Eddie. Great to hear from you again.

    Reply
  4. Diane says

    4 June 2020 at 12:22 pm

    Wonderful to be with you both verbally. Thanks for the photos, Eddie. I have friends who live in Norfolk and it’s great to read your descriptions, really cool!! I live in Spain inland from Benidorm high in the mountains and this morning I watched some ants very busy as ants always are……

    Reply
  5. Alan P says

    5 June 2020 at 4:17 pm

    Some great beetle photos there Eddie, great to see. Thanks for sharing these.

    Reply

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