I don’t know whether it’s the creeping up of age that is making me a little bitchier lately or whether it is one and the same that makes me feel I have the right to complain when I see a wrong in our laws that allows stupidity to be carried on, fringed by their boundaries.
I am a tree hugger by choice, as was my father before me, having planted untold thousands.
But now I am complaining about trees being planted where ought they should not.
Lately, now that I have become familiar with more of the surrounding neighbours, I often find myself riding shotgun in their vehicles as they tour the countryside going somewhere for something or taking something to someplace. It is a social gesture on their part allowing me to see and learn a little more about the countryside to which I am recently adapting.
The locals know and, more often than not, take the up and down twisting back roads to wherever for whatever. This allows me to see the history of the countryside spelled out to me one beautiful hillside or valley at a time. I see the split rail and stone fences that snaked the arable ten- or twelve-acre fields. I see the tumbled-down homestead buildings that sheltered in the past, perhaps three, four, or more family generations. I see also the backbreaking hours of each generation in their cutting, fencing, stump pulling, stone picking, plowing and harvesting as they, by sweaty brow and muscle, carved subsistence from the old-growth forest.
But that picture is steadily changing. I see multiple large farms taken over by huge-moneyed, colloquially known RBs who have moved up from the cities, having cashed in on rapid inflation, faking retirement, yet coming here, where buildings tumble, with every intention of raping the land for every last cent that can possibly be squeezed.
I see heavy equipment brutalizing second-growth woodland after woodland, hauling truckload after truckload of questionable-sized logs out of an area day after day after day. I see giant bulldozers tearing out hedgerow after hedgerow, making room for the giant equipment that makes possible the mono-cropping of large areas.
I see the diversity of the small, mixed farmers, one and all, being squeezed from existence, forcing employment elsewhere in order to put groceries on the table.
And, too, the most heartbreaking of all, I see trees being planted on many of these arable, workable acreages. I can fully understand trees being planted on the hilly fields, since possible contour tilling went out when horse-drawn farm equipment became obsolete; in addition, the hillsides, too steep for tractors to safely circle, where up-and-down tilling would only encourage irreparable washouts.
But when I see flat, easily worked fields being planted thickly with mono-reforestation in order to gain a small break in taxes, I see only gross disrespect for multiple generations of hard work that encompassed the original clearing of the land. Is this not slapping the face of our ancestors?
I have little respect, only great pity, for the narrow minds that worship the almighty dollar, disregarding completely the sustainability of our God-given natural resources.
Take care, ’cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105