Pilgrim's Progress column with Brian Morris: Nature
A couple of weeks ago, I failed to celebrate a significant date – basically, because it occurred on a Monday! It marked the 52nd anniversary of my licensing as a Lay Minister, known in those days as a Reader.
Over those 52 years, I’ve worked in three provinces, seven dioceses, and with 13 vicars. But my longest stay, of 19 years, has been in Wakefield.
I remember when I retired, people asked me, ‘Where are you moving to now?’ ‘Move?’ I replied. ’Why would I want to move? I’ve only just got to Yorkshire!’ (I’d been in Wakefield for three and a half years.)
I’m fortunate that, living right on the edge of Wakefield, walking and wildlife are on my doorstep.
Within five minutes walk from my house, I’ve photographed a roe deer stag, a family of fox cubs, and a grass snake.
In dry weather, hedgehogs and foxes sometimes come and drink from the ponds in our garden.
I can enjoy a number of local walks of seven to ten miles, of which 90 per cent is off road. And yet we’re only 20 minutes walk from the town centre.
It’s on those walks that I’ve realized just how fragile our agriculture is this year. A potato field, in which the dry soil has cracked open; and while a few potatoes are a couple of inches long, most are barely the size of marbles.
A rhubarb field where most stalks are less than six inches long.
An apple tree, where half the apples have already fallen to the ground, and are only the size of plums.
A blackberry bush where only a quarter of the berries have ripened at full size; the rest have shrivelled.
In the book of Genesis, God charges man with the care of the world that has been created for him. That is still the case today.
Brian Morris, St John’s, Wakefield