I remember receiving a tin musical carousel spinning top one Christmas which amused me greatly. The harder I pumped the handle the faster it would spin until it ran out of steam and fell on it's side, still going round and round but off it's axis. Eventually the toy, dented and scraped, broke it's pumping mechanism and was discarded - no doubt crammed into a box and put into the attic, forgotten about and unloved. Perhaps we have been pumping the handle on our world too hard for the last few decades and it's been spinning too quickly with all of us asking it to do more than it's capable of. I hope it's not too late to patch it up and pass it on to younger generations who might have the foresight to look after it more kindly.
Something I've been noticing more and more on the acre is the increased boldness of the wildlife with whom we share our home. I'm very used to having a robin as a companion as I dig over a patch of land but recently I've been joined by blackbirds too who will stand just a few feet away watching for a tasty worm to gobble up. There are also field mice who will happily scurry about their business, which mainly seems to consist of digging up old chestnuts, just out of touch. They sit with a tasty morsel staring back at me with their huge, out of proportion, black eyes as if I was no longer any threat to them at all - which I've never wanted to be but how I'm normally regarded. Similarly I can wander past the willow trees and the maze and the tits don't take flight but continue to scrap amongst themselves, or proceed with twig gathering or carry on in the pursuit of a partner to spend the spring with. Perhaps my least favourite acre inhabitants are the rats who again seem to see me as their new found friend and only plop into the stream at the very last moment before a wheelbarrow or my boot is about to come into contact with their fat rumps. Lastly there is the resident fox, a beautiful creature with a light ginger coat streaked with grey along it's back. I've seen it several times now, and often during the day, but whatever it's business it keeps that a secret from me. At night it's a different matter as I hear the screams from the acre and beyond as another meal is dispatched, often accompanied by the congratulatory hoots of owls who will no doubt be picking up tit bits at the murder scene.
It's very difficult not to be able to change what is going on around us and it can make us feel feel helpless, low and anxious. There are things we can change and do during the enforced lock down and we've got stories of people growing plants from seed for the first time, making garden troughs and 'hanging beds' from discarded pallets, learning how to bake or discovering that they are a lot more capable at doing something than they've ever given themselves credit for.
Take care and keep well.
Corin.