Make hay!
I grew up on a small holding, i may have said this before. A small holding is rioiughly speaking, between 1 and 1000 acres which are used for small scale farming. Over a thousand acres can usually be considered a working farm, a small holding should provide produce for the family and maybe a little over to trade. When I was very small we had a dairy herd, sheep, chickens, rabbits (bred as food), and orchard, a vegetable and fruit garden and we grew hay. This all got scaled down bit by bit over the years till there qwere 30 sheep and hay, then nothing, in its place we moved towards having a livery stables, where people could pay for the use of fields and stables for their horses. Mum had bred horses at one point and we loved having them around, all the girls in the family rode.
So, why am i saying this now, well it's the heat; no it's not messing with my head, it's just all this hoopla about how we have actually ad a couple of hot dry weeks and it's the greenhouse effect and things, but weather goes in cycles. I am not disputing the negative effect on the environment of our short term and selfish living practises, but as for this summer, when I was young, and we used to make hay you paid attention to the sun, your livelihood depended on it.
As I say weather goes in cycles, we would have two or three years where the sun came for two or three weeks, blazing down, the skies were clear and we could get the hay in at the perfect time in perfect conditions with minimum stress, then you'd get two or three years of having to jump on three days where it didn't rain and hope for the best or risk not getting it in atall, i remember shifting bales till midnight to get them all off the field and covered, and mum anxiously phoning up for the 5 day forecasts and worrying about every desicsion. For a few weeks every summer the weather ruled our lives.
Just saying really, I find it odd how people react to a little sunshine.
So, why am i saying this now, well it's the heat; no it's not messing with my head, it's just all this hoopla about how we have actually ad a couple of hot dry weeks and it's the greenhouse effect and things, but weather goes in cycles. I am not disputing the negative effect on the environment of our short term and selfish living practises, but as for this summer, when I was young, and we used to make hay you paid attention to the sun, your livelihood depended on it.
As I say weather goes in cycles, we would have two or three years where the sun came for two or three weeks, blazing down, the skies were clear and we could get the hay in at the perfect time in perfect conditions with minimum stress, then you'd get two or three years of having to jump on three days where it didn't rain and hope for the best or risk not getting it in atall, i remember shifting bales till midnight to get them all off the field and covered, and mum anxiously phoning up for the 5 day forecasts and worrying about every desicsion. For a few weeks every summer the weather ruled our lives.
Just saying really, I find it odd how people react to a little sunshine.
posted by Hageltoast at 12:08 pm
1 Comments:
We're having a pretty wet summer here, and people are freaking out over global warming too. Last year was dry and hot. Like you, i don't dispute that we are definitely harming the planet, and I try to do my part by recycling, composting, using public transportation, etc.
You keep hearing talk about petroleum companies and other industry being the big pollution culprits, but they exist because there is a market. Bottom line, we, every one of us, are the polluters, despite all the recycling we do, because we're the end consumers - if we didn't want our cars, there would be no war in Iraq probably (yes I KNOW I'm exaggerating, but you get the picture). And I really don't think people are willing to live like 200 years ago (no cars, no electricity, none of those pollution causing modern comforts) in order to drastically cut pollution. So global warming, if global warming it is, will keep on keeping on and we'll just boil in the kettle we lit the fire under.
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