Marimba, loving your weeds, soil, growth
Hello.
There are as always some absolute stunners in this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning images.
Pure joy here also as the children of the Goede Hoop Marimba Band in South Africa perform a piece from Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' on steelpans.
Awesome agroecological farmer Nikki Yoxall posts a thread about weeds on farms that is music to my ears. Part of staying sane when converting the farm to organic status was embracing the weed as symptomatic of issues with the soil, more than problematic.
World Soil Day is December 5 and the theme is 'Soil: Where food begins'. I like this. Reminds me of when someone described gardens as being like 'giant boxes of dirt that push food out of the ground at you'. Meanwhile, it's already UK Soils Awareness Week and uksoils have produced a great soil lexicon and quiz. I scored 73% so am going back to school.
The government (and the opposition) have been talking a lot about growth recently. Economist Kate Rowarth channels Donella Meadows to pose a set of questions we should all be asking about growth.
A couple of weeks ago I was chuffed to show Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, and a group from WWF UK including the Chair and CEO, around the farm and talk about our nature-friendly farming practices. They were a brilliantly engaged and passionate group of people. WWF UK have just released the Living Planet Report 2022, a study suggesting that global wildlife populations have dropped on average by 69% since 1970. Sorry to end on a downer - the good news is, it is reversible.
In our news this week, removals quotes and preparation for relocation to Devon next month. Wow. Moving is expensive.
All the best
Nathan