Hunter

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity 

The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy

from Auguries of Innocence
William Blake

Today I dug the plague pit: the hole where we will burn contaminated frames and bury the ashes. Hard work, in several senses, especially as - two spits down - I hit the notorious South Warwickshire Lias clay - the sort of thing you made models with in primary school. The specified size - mandated by the king - is 1 metre by 1 metre by 60cm deep; that is a big spoil heap and a lot of hefting. At least the king talks metric

Two oddities:

In all that soil, I did not see a single earthworm. The hole is in the place that was flooded over much of the winter, perhaps that has driven them away, though I'm surprised they have not yet recolonised. If that is not the reason, it is worrying 

About 40cm down, I started hitting stone - very unusual on that site. Not across the whole dig, though. Once I had dug around it, it was clear it was a band of medium sized pieces of limestone, crossing from one side to the other. Before the development of clay drainage pipes, this is how farmers tried to drain wet land. I think somewhen in history someone dug a trench from this wet spot to the ditch, filled the bottom with stone (and possibly branches, now decayed) and put soil on top. I feel a connection with that labourer - I'm sure they cursed the clay as roundly as I did

If you can see the earth in a grain of sand, you can surely see it here - the blue planet from space, with me as the astronaut. She scuttled off, protecting her egg sack, as I broke the first sod. If killing a fly provokes nature's wrath, how am I to fare? I suppose I can anticipate a few stings as payback. Poetic justice

I don't know much about spiders. I think this is a wolf spider, or a fox spider, or both! I can't find anything about species that have iridescent blue egg sacks. If anyone can help, I'm intrigued