Time's Up

One of the mottos of the Climate Extinction & Kids for Future movements.

During the petition/referendum for Bavaria's Bio-Diversity laws earlier this year, one of the most frequently used arguments from the "traditional" farming lobby was the fact that the people voting for it were also those who were concreting/slabbing/gravelling/stoning their gardens so that they didn't even need grass to mow never mind plant a flower.

While there is some truth in relatively few cases, I think the majority do try to balance the need to have usable/useful spaces with pretty flowering parts, As in the case of today's Blip in a corner of the village I seldom ever get to walk around. It's a very "colourful" part with some very bright house colours, unusual in this part of the world where white dominates and some parish councils even have it written as a must in their building regulations - for touristic reasons.

Think the house & garden has been renovated in the last year as on Geotag Satellite view it is still in white - I rather liked the old Deutsche Mark parking meter put up alongside the parking bays in front of the house. There are quite a few blooms at the far left corner which seems to be the outdoor seating/BBQ relaxation area.

Luna and I were on the final leg of a new/unusual evening walk, setting out from the lakes after a swim (there was one lone swimmer but nobody on "our" beach today, Then zig-zagged around & through the maize/corn fields between our village & the parish capital city Sontheim. Did manage to spot a flower or rather 3 sunflowers which I think are a chance seeding from some sunflowers planted here last year on a small strip bordering a maize field. /See extra photo),

This year there seems to be far less of the practice of sowing the outer row of maize fields with sun- and wildflowers. Not sure why but suspect in protest against the environmental lobby. Having said that I don't think we have done a great deal in our own garden.

Last year I had been banned from doing anything in the garden as my thoughts on pruning & maintenance are not approved of. I am told nature will sort it all out. In the extra photo collage bottom row is a part of our garden about 15m from the house which was a halfway usable spot of grass but difficult as lots of surface roots from the half dozen spruce trees we had felled a few years ago. I had planned to dig it over last spring and put in wildflowers as it has never had any fertiliser in the last 40 odd years, ideal soil. However, this was vetoed and now the thistle & nettle patch is doing very well in its second year. Nettles great for caterpillars and the thistles wonderful for bees & flying insects when in bloom. But now the seeds will continue their march throughout the garden and into the grass areas which are increasingly becoming barefoot-free zones and the few flower beds are now being killed off by two-meter high thistles.

Somewhere there has to be a balance between pure nature and our modern cultivated landscape that gives nature space. Pure nature leads to jungle conditions for which we modern humans are not equipped. The thistles in our garden have been so successful that now the strip of land 5m from our house bordering the forest is completely covered in them. Only a few years ago it was full of brambles - excellent bee nectar provider.

I have had to resign myself to trying to cultivate calluses on my feet & luckily still have my father's cutlass/machete he used when out in the Trinidadian jungle. Just hope our cats don't turn into tigers & Luna into a wolf. She did catch & kill a mouse on today's walk. While I did stop her from eating it, in future I might encourage the practice to prevent her eyeing me up as a potential takeaway meal.