Last week’s feature in the Westmorland Gazette - 'Blogging insight into the Good Life’ - correctly quoted me as saying "I believe that people will have to let go of the freedom to have everything they want to take the pressure off the planet."
Let’s explore this one a bit further, for it provides a fundamental need into the so-called ‘Good Life.’

It seems that the modern world has an apparently insatiable appetite for all that is new within our ‘widgetised’ world. The commercial market goes on and on thrusting more and more gleaming, tempting products in front of our eyes.

All of this stuff consumes huge amounts of energy and scarce finite resources. Somehow we need to get unhooked from it all, and make do with what we’ve got and what we actually need. We need to learn to fix it, maintain it, restore it, look after it, clean it, respect it, and even revere it! In this context, my late great aunt, Margaret Cropper really reflected on this ethos in one of her most pointed poems: -

But I didn’t want anything new,
Only primroses growing where they always grew,
No, I didn’t want anything new,

And I didn’t want anything grand,
Only curlews calling over the tufted land,
No I didn’t want anything grand.

I only wanted to go
To the fields to see things grow,
And to wander to and fro -

A wonderful sense of inner peace and satisfaction, methinks, far removed from the hectic clamour of our modern world!

It is possible to find this type of peace of mind when living the ‘good life’ but I must confess it seems hard at times. To explain: - The ‘good life’ is often referred to as ‘the simple life’. I attended a seminar recently on the theme of the ‘simple life’ at which the lecturer invited input from delegates during his presentation. Part way through I stuck my hand up. "Excuse me," I said, "Can I say that from my experience the ‘simple life’ that you are promoting is actually very complicated and very sophisticated." " See me later," he replied! And later, I discovered my view was much endorsed by other delegates.

So, I suppose a basic reality in connecting to an eco-friendly way of life is that it is far from simple - a sort of permanent juggling exercise, if you like!

Yes, we do include a wee bit of ‘wandering to and fro’ so as to witness and connect to the strength and beauty of the natural world, but much of the ‘good life’ is about keeping pace with the seasonal demands of being coupled to natural processes, The seasons dictate! The arrival of spring leashes forth an avalanche of daily chores. For example:-

At this time of year, our small flock of Jacob sheep are pushing their lambs out into the cold dew of dark mornings. We are up at first light to check safe birth and to witness that first life giving suckle on a mother ewe’s teat - that first magic dose of rich yellow colostrum.

Then - out to our small coppice wood, to tidy up after the season of coppicing - tying up bundles of hazel pea sticks and runner bean poles - putting on one side suitable wood for making stick chairs - hedging stakes for traditional hedge layers- longer pole lengths for woven hurdles. All of this among wild garlic and bluebells peeping out into the beginning of spring’s explosion of new life.

Then - back home to water broad beans (own seed gathered from last year) now appearing through a mix of two-year-old leaf mould (use of peat is an environmental no-no!), and well rotted compost, into which the beans were sewn ten days ago,

Then - manipulating two year old goat muck into the boarded vegetable beds, with a special copper cultivator hand tool (copper is kinder to the soil) - a bit like making pastry - the gentler the process the better the results.

Then - planting out a tub of two-year-old oak tree whips from acorn seed gathered locally, into our little tree nursery, snipping their roots, if too long, so as to make a tight ‘nest’ of roots when planting out in a year or two.

Then - helping the traditional hedge-layer sort out the surplus hedge tops - bringing ash branches back for the goats. They love chiselling off the fresh bark (full of protein, health giving vitamins and trace elements), with their front teeth. They are happy, which makes us happy!

Then - retrieving stored homegrown beetroot from a wooded box containing a dry mixture of sterilised leaf mould and sand (dried out in our wood fired Rayburn), so as to make borsch soup for tea.

And so it goes on! All of this should not be interpreted as ‘showing off’ but more trying to explain our own way of taking the pressure off poor old planet Earth - via a ‘staying put’ philosophy and doing as much as we can for ourselves - at home!

And yes, as it said in The Westmorland Gazette leader (March 30), ‘Not everyone will choose to live like Edward Acland,’ but it is interesting to note that at a conference I attended last month in Cardiff, organised by the soil Association on the theme of ‘One Planet Post Oil Agriculture’ we were told that only one per cent of the current British ‘work-force’ actually work in agriculture as farmers! (65 per cent in India!). Conference were advised that a post peak oil world would have to hugely increase the number of people who physically work on the land via ten million new farmers within the next 20 years or so!!

So, at last, a serious forward plan for a very different future, for a world that must get into transition mode. We were also told that the current heavily mechanised approach to modern agriculture cannot be sustained as if there is no tomorrow, when the oil reserves become scarce and such fuel very costly. The vision for the future suggested a growing emphasis on low-tec horticulture, via a rurally employed work force, concentrating on LOCAL production and LOCAL markets. This for obvious reasons, like low food miles and low energy consumption.

Hurrah - at last - a real plan with a target - rather than just a target!

So, our little world at Sprint Mill could be described as a microcosm example of a future survival scenario. One aspect is clear. We all need to work in the same direction, plus or minus someone else’s method. Let’s hope that this blog site will stimulate an input and exchange of support and criticism so as to help us all towards a more secure future set within environmental and resource limits.