Word Pressing

Working in the orchard, you learn that trees produce many products, if you look after them. Fresh apples, cider, vinegar, brandy. The products also feed others : deer, bear, squirrel, chipmunk plus numerous bird species.

Can we apply the same analogy to my use of WordPress? Another realization. In writing my blog over the last few years, I have become dependent on WordPress.

What would happen if you applied those same cyclic and sustainable lessons to the way we manage the trees in the forest ?

When I read Alistair MacLeod, I appreciate his descriptions of life, and the lives along the Cape Breton coastline. I appreciate his use of language, including Gaelic. Is the story telling process really word processing or, as in the case of cider pressing, extracting the essence from the fruit which comes from the trees which we manage for a variety of products?

We have a deep relationship with our landscape and we interact in many ways with the landscape and all the other species which co-exist with us. Why allow a single-minded fixation on wood supply to destroy this complex relationship with the forested landscape and its co-habitants? Why do we see changes in the climate ? Why do we see the changes in the population of these other species ?

I am willing to put my faith in the cider press, but also in the word press.

INPUT: Crown lands, Sustainability, Clear-cutting

OUTPUT: Haiku

Crown lands management

Like a war zone

Wildlife homeless.

— HAIKU by Heather Stewart

Postscript.

Please read Alistair MacLeod’s As Birds Bring Forth the Sun.

Acknowledgements

Each week, Edward helps me master the idiosyncrasies of the WordPress software. Heather continues to see the trees and not the wood.

References

Edward found this link to over forty classic British movies for free, hidden as a scavenger hunt on Google Maps. In his view, mixing maps, GIS and geography with entertainment is a powerful, educational and business notion. Looks like fun.