We’re giving you all a piece of the Unspoken Garden. I’ve fenced off a patch in the middle of the badminton quad. It is right in the centre of the court and hence, because it is precisely under the net it is unlikely to be trodden on, even in winter when the net is not there, as we let the lawn grow thick and strong and mostly keep off the grass. The section I have selected is one centimetre wide by one centimetre long by one centimetre deep. This cubic centimetre is yours. I’m giving it to all of you. You must share it equally, which means that, at the time of writing you are each entitled to approximately one 8.1 billionth of one cubic centimetre, though by the time you read this your allocation will have shrunk. You can come and claim your share but you will have to continuously give a fragment back, as births increase at a quicker pace than deaths occur, even in these murderous times. Our gift to you is, therefore, symbolic. Please be joyful knowing that you have a tiny part of our garden. You will only have it as long as you are alive, then you must return it. Of course, I know that you don’t really have it. Neither do we. It is not ours to give. Even though we own our property, we will have to relinquish it one day. That is true of all the earth on the Earth. No one owns any of it, even though they think they do. The Earth owns them. They will depart but not leave. The earth of the Earth will remain. It is what they came from and where they reside once they have gone. The global cube is not worth fighting over as more than eight billion people have to share it, and not even one person can stand on it as it is far too small, and it is too feeble to support the weight of even a new born babe. We all have it, though there is no room for any single one of us. I must remind you, that your global cube is, and has always been, at the convenience of even more individuals than those classified as human. Any natural visiting creature can pass through, take up residence or even redesign it, should they chance upon it. Invertebrates may plough a path across, a beak may split it asunder, and a fat worm squeezing through would compress our cube so much that your share would become even more microscopic. A squirrel may dig it up and replace it with a nut. The planet on which we live consists of nothing else but cubic centimetres of soil, rock, gas, or fluid. No part of it belongs to any one of us. It was not created for us, and we were not created for it. All we can do while we are here, is share it and care for it. One day you will be unable to do either. Please share, and care.
Home thoughts from the flower border
It has been a good and not-so-good year for the unspoken garden. We enjoyed and endured the vagaries of the weather, warm sometimes, wet at others and worryingly unseasonal with increased frequency. The blooms, though not enamoured by the wet spells, did eventually parade their prom finery bringing much delight and plenty of pollen for the biplane bees and Lepidoptera copters. The fruit yields were disappointing, with strawberries small and fewer apples than I can recall for any previous year. The veg did better with bundles and bundles of beans, some slightly spicy lettuce and the usual abundance of rhubarb. It was also a good year for fauna. Our fish have flourished with the initial stock of a dozen or so now swollen to something in the region of half a hundred. We did have at least three casualties though, all from undiagnosed but apparently natural causes. Sadly, this included the twice-lived Lazarus who I snatched from the jaws of a passing predatorial pussy several years ago. Blue and great tits are not quite as evident, but the coal variety have been plentiful, as have blackbirds, dunnock, woodpigeon, and a strong showing of collared doves. Our feeders were ambushed by the shock-troop starlings in spring and summer, but they now seemed to have withdrawn to wage other campaigns. Encouragingly and strangely, we now see the high altitude sweeps of buzzard. The crowning glory this year though, was the first ever sighting of a kingfisher perusing our pond (see above). He or she did not return which is both disappointing and reassuring. The gulls, as always, provide periodical entertainment. In the main they are the slender, cheeky black-headed variety, along with a few herring bullies and the occasional great black backed bouncers. A couple of grey wagtails paid a flying visit and the corvids, wrens and robins are never far away. I only saw a maximum of three swifts sweeping the skies during a hammock scan. Ten years ago, I could confidently count treble that number or more.
Butterflies have been a little fewer than in previous years but we’ve been graced with some species of damsel and dragonflies that we’d not welcomed previously; a blue-tailed variety of the former and a broad-bodied chaser of the latter. We also disturbed a common plume moth, so common that I had never knowingly seen one ever before. Its crucified resting pose is gloriously gothic.
The night-time footage of our trail camera shows the usual suspects of neighbours’ cats on the sniff for the mice that thieve from the hog feeding station, but also confirms we are still receiving courtesy calls from a least two foxes, one of which has only half a tail. The greatest joy has been ‘bent-nosed’ Benji the rescue hog who was bullied by his bigger brother. The unspoken gardener, nursed him to independence. After release he made himself very much at home in our garden. On one occasion we saw him indulging in some bullying of his own, it might have been to oust the hog we previously released – our Christmas guest: Chrissy. Benji has not been seen for a while now, so perhaps he’s bedded down to snooze through the bad times. If only we could do that. I cannot ask the wildlife not to fight over the global cubes of the unseen garden. Fighting and killing is a way of life for them. Even the vegetarians and vegans kill the vegetation. They rarely kill their own kind though. Unlike us.
From: Ice & Lemon in which the unspoken garden has more to say.
uneasywords 