The New Orchard is a Living Thing

This new orchard is a living thing. Already robins and sparrows land on its branches. Hummingbirds and butterflies visit their new home. The fruit trees are healthy, promising a future bounty. The soil is worm rich, and the resident chickens continue to enrich it.

It is a good thing to add to life, rather than subtract, and I smile thinking of the small part I have played in it all. Make no mistake, I have done damage in my younger years but, in truth, so have we all.  Many of us, this writer included, have failed to help the planet on a consistent basis. Small things, really, like not recycling at times, not conserving energy, nothing deliberate, mind you, but damage all the same.

One hopes, though, as the years advance, and awareness increases, and the absolute certainty that Earth cannot sustain much more damage without striking back at humans, that a concerted effort is undertaken to help Earth as much as possible and, to use a popular phrase, to have the smallest footprint possible as we march through life.

I do not hunt, don’t believe in it, cannot understand how someone could kill a deer or bear or bighorn sheep; having said that, I am fully aware of the hypocrisy as I dine on a cheeseburger.  And I’m sure that’s true of most good people; they do what they can, make errors along the way, and hope it’s enough.

What I cannot abide by are the mega-corporations run by a Board of  Directors and a CEO, all of whom know they are doing damage to the Earth and yet make no effort to stop and, before you point out a possible hypocrisy and say “but Bill, you buy from those corporations,” I will tell you that I make every effort not to and, if I do buy from a harmful corporation, I am not aware of their transgressions.

When I lived in Vermont, this being back in 1980, there was a statewide ban on major corporations.  Not a McDonalds could be found. Why?  Because the state leaders, and voters, did not want the pristine nature of their state raped by money-hungry behemoths with zero conscience.  And I wonder, why more states do not adopt those measures and then, once sanity restores, I realize that the almighty dollar speaks louder than consciences.

A circuitous route to the point made earlier: the new orchard is a living thing, breathing thing, producing thing, and that is a good thing. And again, I wonder what would happen if more people were to plant a tree in their yards? Or what would happen if more people were to get rid of their lawns?  Or if more people adopted solar or made more of an effort to conserve energy?

Anyway, I saw a Monarch Butterfly the other day, and that’s a very good thing.  If you don’t know the story of the Monarch, and the Herculean journey it undertakes yearly, it’s worth reading about.

But then, I am just an old bear of very little brain, so I suppose I am just being silly in my musings.