It is well to remember...how it was.

The gridiron pattern of agriculture has been used to maximise profit and optimise the productive energy of labour since feudal times.Plantation management, seen in the clear light of day is a system that reduces a man and his land to servile slavery.Each gully fills with water every time it rains , the fertile fines are then washed down the hill, the field over years, generations of traditional practice, stratified laterally by the annual deluge was left with heavy clay soil at the bottom of the slope ,cold and wet. The soil at the top of the slope was dry sandy and stoney. The impact of both tractor and human feet in between the crops left much of the applied manure and compost crushed unusable into the schist layer beneath the cultivated mineral surface, inaccessable by the plant roots. A wasted resource.
The open field afforded no protection from driving wind and rain, crops easily flattened.No shade for either plant or planter in the summer sun, the surface often panning hard or cracking.When wind blows across parched soil clouds of fine dust the land's potential fertility may be seen leaving the field.A few centuties ago the soil was several feet deeper. now since the heavy tractor cultivation has caused the grubbing up of most of the hedges, many fields are observed to be eroded and degraded; In spite of the obvious neglect of service to the earth the fields continue to be exploited for short term gain,soil and water can be seen spewing like custard over broken banks to silt up the watercourses and block drainage conduits. What is being lost took many thousands of years to evolve. The hinterland of our small domain needs to be returned to the hands of sensitive and caring cultivators. The contract cowboys are pulling the tits off mother earth. It is evident that a philosophical sea change is long overdue that would take the land out of the reach of subvention sponsored pillagers in order to reestablish none commercial independent peasantry in domestic familial homelands. The support of unsustainable urban self indulgent consumer habits by grant aided unsustainable fast return monoculturism is morally unjustifiable,costing the earth,beyond it's ability to recover.
Our little piece of heaven is showing signs of improvement,although it will be many years of work before we are satisfied by it's condition.The land itself is the collateral base in our domestic life supporting economy.
Scores of tons of soil have been moved to relative "safety " the incremental appreciation of the investment of our voluntary labour and material resources is greater security for the future of our family than putting our pentacles in the bank.
Several tons of stone now wait to be moved to the site of the roundhouse , it will improve the micro climate in the field,and improve the retention of available water in the ground;but what I look forward to most on storm driven rain soaked days like today. It will give me a sheltered facility where I can do some useful crafty work,where I feel comfortably at home with my vocational industry. Till then, plenty of Legowriting and pretty pictures to come.Iznibz Wazir.