Working its way along the ditch that was a creek.
It will be beside the house sometime today. It will pass through, hauling slime and muck and rubbish and dead things up out of the ditch and slinging it down into the grasses where the pheasants are nesting and all manner of other creatures live. Where I work. It will be a big heaving stinking mess. He rips out all the trees in his way and will destroy our pathway along the bank.
All along the bank that we see in the background here he will dump the filth in great uneven bucketfuls. He is aimed straight for the beavers damn of course. There is nothing like a natural made blockage to raise the ire of the farmers here.
I am going to lay in wait for him today and try to get the driver to come down out of his stronghold up there and talk to me. I am going to gently ask him to please avoid yanking out all my trees. Not throw shit on top of the Fellowship forest. Try to avoid the asparagus. And why not a truck to take this crap away. People throw bags of trash into the ditch from the bridge – all that will be brought up and dumped in my backyard. And I am going to ask him if he can not wreck the path that I walk when I go to the other barn every day. Sadly, I will have lost the moment I open my mouth.
Knowing all this, I sat and watched him for a long time yesterday trying to put a positive spin in this. Trying to say – Excellent here is the problem – what shall I do. It is true that the water will move faster for the farmers who want their land to drain better. The Fellowship Forest is still just far enough away to survive I think and all the trees have very obvious guards on them. But losing the bigger wild trees and the milk weed is awful.
Thankfully the trees that survived the fire last spring are on the other side – so as long as he does not turn around and go back the other way – one whole side will be ok. This is good. Just not the house side sadly.
Then a really positive thing came to me. Last year one of the fellowship and frequent commenter, Pat Rousseau, donated a considerable sum for wild flowers along the bank. I had another patch picked out and was going to sow the seeds next week. But now I think I will try and work with the dense tailings. Once it is dry I will go through and pick out all the rubbish, then till it, then sow her wild flowers into this stretch behind the house.
Maybe this is a way to make a little lemonade from these lemons.
At the same time I am going to plant more native fruit trees into this space to replace the ones they have yanked out of the bank. Don’t they know that trees and their roots are imperative to movement of water and drainage AND hold the bank up – then there would be no need for a digger to keep digging it back out. River banks in nature are lined in trees. Wild flowers for the bees and birds and butterflies – these work together to form a critical component in a land mass ecosystem.
Anyway I cannot let myself focus on the destruction, I cannot stop them, I have to work with the mess, so my thought is that if I plant more trees and more flowers into the muck they leave behind; maybe when the ditch digger passes again ten years hence my forest will be so established they cannot bear to pull it down.
It will look like a bomb site for a long time though, and the nice walk to the other barn will be gone. I am never walking it again. I am not walking through rubble. We will walk the long way – around the road.
I thought we owned the land to the ditch, we do own it, but we own the land the digger wrecked two years ago when he dug out the ditch by the road and threw the tailings into my hay field and that did not stop them. Hugo and I spent weeks cleaning that up. They do not ask and do not care.
I am firmly told that I cannot stop them – it is the way things are done here. Makes me want to go home.
The beavers will hear him coming and escape – the men dug them out last summer and they returned so I have faith in the little animals to get clear. They will have plenty of warning. The digger is methodical and slow. But I mourn for them already for all the animals and birds affected.
Helplessness will follow me today.
But after the monster is gone I will come back out and begin again. The beavers and I.
Love celi
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
98 responses to “See this big digger?”
Oh I hope the digger is a rule breaker today. Good luck.
We are working together now so that is a good thing.. c
So heartbreaking, Celi. At least you have lemonade on the horizon!
Yes! c
This makes my heart sad for you. And sad for the animals. When I bought my farm five years ago the previous owners had recently killed the beavers that had built a damn and a nice pond near the back of my property. I keep wishing and hoping the beavers come back someday and reclaim the space.
How sad – maybe they will come back.. c
Oh, the trash must be disgusting. Appliances, tires…blek! Today in my own little alley, I had to pick up poopy diapers and tampons. I cant even…
Merciful heavens! That sounds dreadful.. c
With gloved hands…yuck. Ah well, not always so disgusting in a little city alley.
This kind of farming, with no respect for the land, makes me so angry. It is also short-sighted to work against the land instead of with it. Like you said, the trees serve a purpose; so do weeds — what do they think attracts the pollinators anyway? Grrrr.
These big crops don’t need pollinators – soybeans, corn and wheat all self pollinate.
That’s not quite correct, Celi. I found a research project (funded by ag sources), that showed that soybeans that had the influence of honeybee pollination yielded up to 15% higher yields. When I pointed this out to my Brother the Farmer, he was astonished. I said “if the bank offered you a 15% increse on your investment, you’d be all over it…..how about showing a little respect for the bees?” I’ve printed out the research and given it to several neighboring farmers, but honestly, I don’t think they were impressed. It’s very sad…..
Yes you are right – though if they are GM soybeans there is a discussion that the pollen is very bad for the health of the bee and is a major factor in shortening the life of the bee and his hive. The pollen in a GM plant is not the same, the seed is inert. You are right though – bees may increase the yield but are not necessary for pollination like for instance a squash or egglant or an apple or almonds. So the farmers on the plains have no need for pollinators – that is all that i meant really.
This has really gotten my ire up. I am pissed off all the way over here. I do NOT understand. If it is your land, how can they do that? It’s like Horton Hears a Who. You’re the who. And even though you are shouting “I’m here I’m here I’m here I’m here” the “big” people just don’t seem to be able to hear your. F word. And yet, my good woman, you turned yourself around from fuming to action in the course of writing the post. And that is GREAT.
Our local Council sends a large rumbling beast along the levee bank every year to rip out the reeds that grow tall and beautiful down to the water’s edge. They say ‘people’ complain about losing their views of the river, and that they have to keep the reeds under “control”….no-one could tell us what that meant when we asked, and even their own Waterways Management Team didn’t realise the extent of the damage, or in a couple of instances, didn’t even know it was happening. The reeds stop the erosion of the bank if there’s a flood, many creatures and birds lose their habitats…..ducks and often the nests and eggs as well, water dragons, river rats end up in people’s backyards where they’re poisoned…….people complain about the rats but don’t make the connection, and small finches, all are left homeless. I had to speak to the driver last year, as he had the beast right up against my fence and was ready to start ripping the vegetation along my land. My 94 year old neighbour and I put in a concerted effort after last years clearing to stop this happening, or at least modify it……went to every Council meeting, wrote to the papers, involved the local Landcare group……….they were horrified, most people didn’t realise this was happening. Now Council has promised to have their Waterways team check the river banks before just sending someone out to clear, and if it needs doing, it won’t be in early spring. A win for us!
Well done on your win and compromise with the ditch man!
That is awful. I guess pointing out that your stretch isn’t as bad as the rest won’t help. It’s all over by now, isn’t it.
At least it is slow and loud to the animals will scamper – hopefully in a safe direction (tiny bunnies! Maybe it’s still too early there for the little ones)
I assume this is part of a watershed drainage system. We see periodic cleanings of natural bayou/waterways – usually before some county election.
The beavers should come back – although it takes time to cover the scars ( and that sour stink) Nature must sigh, but then immediately starts to reclaim it.
Oh that’s too awful to think about. The scars and the stink will take a while to go away but hopefully, the beavers will have heard the loud noises, have scampered but will return. I just hate to think of your lovely property being spoiled this way. My son was forced to sell his property when the transport authority wanted a part of it for the Transmission Gully highway. The road would have gone through the middle of his property – and ruined their peace and quiet forever.
sad
I’m glad you were able to talk to the operator and save your trees. Things will recover but it’s so frustrating and backward. Wildflowers will be beautiful I’m sure. Best of luck in your efforts.
Oh no, can we find out who is sending the digger and talk to them. Maybe the would be reasonable? Is there a town council that can be contacted and educated?
I feel your pain. It is like this everywhere. We had a similar shock when they clear cut a 40 foot swath through the woods on the Mountain Farmlet to clear the powerlines. They scalped the earth! And it is “a job to do” that keeps them plodding on and wreaking destruction as they go. No thought for beauty, no thought for wildlife, just a job to do. I can almost see the heavy metal gears chunking away in their craniums… chunk-clank, dig-clank, destroy-clank…
Celi .. there is no harm in asking, and maybe this man will hear your words. Perhaps he could remove a smaller scoop .. I understand your frustration. I won’t even launch into the dumb things that happen here. What irks me, is there is never communication .. there is always an alternative way of doing something. Pooh