Free-Range Living

'Small Life-------'

The trend these days being 'grow, get bigger', 'big is best', 'economies of scale are what matter', and suchlike, there's probably not many operations as 'un-big' as the half-acre organic eco micro-holding ('small smallholding;) here in the UK midlands, Never mind, it's still loved and cherished by those who tend it, and for whom it's the base, foundation and oasis to leading a reasonably 'eco friendly', satisfying lifestyle. It's the 'messy' time of year, though, to be 'endured' - not much use, for instance, in cleaning cars, driving round the lanes soon has them pretty un-clean again. And especially this year, here on the 'micro' holding - it's been the wettest December and January here in the UK for over 100 years -seems also to rain pretty much everyday now in Feb and some parts of the Uk seem to be in 'perpetual flood' - not too pleasant to say the least for the poor folks who live there.

'Small offerings ---'

 Burning the good pile of trimmings and loppings the other day, another 'two-in-one' job done - clearing away and dealing with the micro-holding rubbish, whilst making potash fertiliser via the ash at the same time. Growing-wise there's not too much on at the moment, apart from clearing weed material from the ground to the compost heap – the regular job of the moment is harvesting the produce. Fortunately it's sort of a dark peaty soil, having been a kitchen veg garden for probably a couple of hundred years, so it's accesible even in wet conditions, and at the moment (early Feb.) there's leeks, turnips, swedes, celery and winter greens to be had, with home-grown potatoes, broad beans and onions available from store. Leeks will soon finish, the crop having been seriously depleted by the leek moth depradations, as will the celery – only smaller gatherings left now, but fine for soups and stews. The winter greens are a mix of spring cabbage second/third cut, swede leaves (give good 'bite'), purple sprouting leaves and dwarf curly kale, giving tasty, fresh greens through the winter.

'Small veg --- '

Curly kale has seemingly come more into fashion in recent times – it always used to be 'common or garden' produce  - in olden days it was in fact often called 'cottager kale'. It's said to be just about the most nutritious of green veg, packed with vitamins and minerals, which might help to explain its rise in popularity and it's certainly one of the most winter hardy. Kale is also grown as an autumn/early winter green fodder crops for cattle, although 'folding' cattle on kale is now largely out of fashion here in the UK. Two main varieties for cattle were grown : 'thousandheaded' and 'marrowstem' – some of it could get to shoulder height, so a wee bit different from the small clumps of garden dwarf kale, which due to a milder winter here so far this year, are now already trying to go to seed.

The first main 'growing' job coming up shortly (second half of Feb) will be to put the compost and wood ash on the veg growing ground, or rather half of it, the other half being done last year and then next year. This system has been going over thirty years now, without change apart from upping the  amount of compost used, and quite a few of the earlier production problems - onion rot, cabbage root fly and club root, for instance,- have virtually disappeared these days - touch wood. The thinking is that this might have been due to nature, of course, with a little help from bi-yearly applications of woodash. Excellent longer-term result; 'longer-term' seems at times, though, to be often a little 'outdated' these days --- ?

'Small sadness ----- '

Walking in the snow with good mate Hipster Pipster (Scots Border Collie) one time in the big field down the lane, and on rounding the right hand side of a small pond, there suddenly glowed a patch of red/brown colour against the white expanse of the snow, about twenty metres out from the pond edge. It was a half-grown she-fox, her small frozen body laid out on its side, eyes closed, mouth slightly open - a forlorn and pathetic sight that brought its own form of 'sudden existential shock'. The poor little vixen had seemingly just keeled over in her tracks, presumably no energy left due to lack of food in the hard winter weather. Its last few hours on its own struggling in the harsh, unforgiving winter wilderness, couldn't have been a bundle of fun - a sad poignancy hung around the scene.

 Returning with a spade awhile later - fortunately the ground wasn't too frozen to be able to give the poor little creature a burial of sorts, saluting the little vixen's doomed struggle to survive, reminding again of a sad forlorness. 'It's nature, life and death, survival of the fittest', some might well say, but perhaps it would have been difficult not to have been affected by such a scene, such an event - ? Got to thinking - is it in fact that capacity to feel for others, including animals, to have 'fellow feeling', that identifies 'man' from the general run of animal life - ?

'Un – small --- ?'

Maybe man is, and should be, capable of 'higher life' feelings - ? And maybe not just man too -  what about the pod of dolphins that reportedly defended an injured surfer against shark attack, or the lions that again reportedly guarded a little girl lost in their territory? Remarkable tales, suggesting maybe that there is yet more to know - ? Ancient African bushmen apparently saw lions as reincarnations of their ancestors, sacred animals with their own wisdom. Far fetched? And yet, who could say definitively, that it's  'bunkum' - ??

'Small struggle ----?'

There are those, though, that see the human struggle in the same sort of 'survival of the fittest' light, one key Government advisor saying, for instance, in a speech to a higher education audience, that 'only the fittest will survive' in the new large, power-based future world to come.  Crikey – the 'quality of mercy' (again a human attribute - ?) not to be strained too much in the future, then? Or even right now - a letter to a broadsheet newspaper the other day suggested that such was the same in the UK, with the rich and powerful taking the poorer and un-powerful 'to the cleaners' - a form of bullying power abuse, the letter inferred. A report in the paper recently infers that healthcare could be targetted to 'those contributing most/most productive to society', again no mercy for the 'vulnerable' - or presumably could it anyway mean older people then, them having 'paid in' for many decades - ??

Hard maybe to oppose the sentiments of the letter (above), with the UK government's seeming 'hit' on benefits, the mis-selling of insurances to the public and small businesses by banks, the reported mis-selling of energy supplies via false promises of cheaper bills, and of course, amongst other things, the mis-practices of the financial sector as a whole, affecting so-called 'ordinary people' by impact, for instance, on pensions and the austerity measures brought in to reduce the deficit caused by the financial mis-practices.

One of the longer-term effects of such 'organisational abuse' of individuals, presumably indicating a level of 'nil respect' of them, could  be the withering of the public's trust in the 'system' - ? One piece even claimed it could have been a grand plan to 'put people in their place' (eg. ant-unionism) and gain/re-gain power over people – ? Far fetched - ?  Who knows - ?

 A recent UK tv programme about Denmark gave the alternative picture, with community and social satisfactions featuring very strongly, a society in which, as Schumacher might have said, 'where people mattered', and where they particularly noted 'trust' as being key, and where social provisions are strong. 'Proof of the pudding' - even though Danes are amongst the highest taxed in the world, according to official research, they are the happiest nation in the world ------ ??

'Small power ----'

The evidence above could certainly indicate a  picture in the UK of individuals being un-valued and un-respected in such a 'organisational' type of culture, based on 'largism' type power (one survey, for instance, found a majority of employeess reporting feeling 'uncared for', and 'un-valued'). In which case perhaps there should no surprise - if the culture has power as a key value, then presumably the 'powerless' individual will not count too much, and could be seen as an area in which to use the power to exploit, which some - many? - might say has been the state of play. In such austerity times, for instance, 'ordinary' peoples' pay has been virtually static, whereas bonuses and pay rises to higher-echelon people have seemingly continued unabated, one head of a British university reportedly recently getting a 29% pay rise, whilst his troops, the 'ordinary' level academics, receiving a pay rise of just 1%.

 Not just people - a book called 'Farmaggeddon' has recently drawn attention to the plight of intensively kept livestock in large numbers in the US   - dairy cows, for instance, with little opportunity to follow their natural behaviours, such as 'roam' grazing, and with small independent dairy farmers 'under the cosh' here in the UK, ('small' business 'anathema' to 'large business, with its 'economies of scale' mantra- ?), the concern is that such 'factory farming', big money animal husbandry practices will be coming the UK's way pretty shortly (planning law recently changed to smooth its passage, for instance) - ?

'Small then unimportant - ?'

Such a trend towards large-scale organisational  power has been one that's been identified for awhile - Fritz Schumacher in his seminal work 'Small is Beautiful' spoke of the rise in 'giantism', calling therefore a 'counter-insistence' on the merits and values of 'small'. The latter have, too, long been regarded as important, being the basis for the 'freeworld' principle  of individual rights and freespeech, which could then be under a degree of threat from such a trend of large-scale power - ? Wouldn't a society, though, be in danger of losing a lot of 'people productivity' which could potentially be gained by 'motivation leadership' management - ? 'Control' management, surely can only go so far, and could then need ever increasing amounts of it, which can then at times take things into inhumane situations - ?

'Small control --- ?'

Hence, maybe, the need for the individual to be able to practise some degree or other of 'freeranging'- to preserve the individual 'self' in the face of such demanding large-scale power, and its emanations (eg. level of commercial content in the media). Myriad ways of  such self-protection are in practice possible : from creating 'protective skins' to counter unrealistic workplace demands (employee suicides have been recorded due, it's said, to workplace pressures – ever higher targets, for instance), to creating mini 'sane, humane societies' (eg. collectively buying a small farm and creating a like-minded community), to pressing the remote contron mute button during TV ads, to becoming a self-insular hermit (apparently there's a small resurgence in 'hermiting' - one lady hermit in West Wales reported an upsurge in people interested in her lifestyle), to taking up small-scale individual enterprise (eg. starting up a market stall/small retail enterprise) , to 'downsizing' - a semi-dropping out of 'mainstream' to a quieter 'backwater - such a list would surely be endless - ?

And maybe - to taking up life on the micro oasis that is the 'micro-holding' - being able then to create life-enhancing surroundings and lifestyles, with stronger connections to 'natural', and nature, making and mending things, to then be better able to withstand being swept individually away by any on-rush of 'change, change, innovate, innovate', and/or 'materialistic mania'. Not everyone could necessarily do it, or would want to do it, but such a semi-independent lifestyle is at least accessible, needing a relatively small amount of resources, for instance (i.e. say, a garden and an allottment (patch of ground for veg growing)). No 'glint of gold', or 'flame of fame', it's true, but maybe better to be able over time to 'survive and thrive', and to manage that tricky job of, as they say, 'staying sane in an insane world' -- ??