BADGERS AND WITCHES

     It’s very quiet here… only the sounds of the birds, the lambs, sometimes the military helicopters from the Royal Navy Base in Yeovilton  buzzing  over the endless green landscape letting you know that there is a need for military helicopters somewhere.  But don’t be mistaken, just because we’re in the country it doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to do.  Mornings are for writing.  Then it’s pulling prickly nettles out of the ground, chopping down brambles; those relentless attack vines with spikes, feeding Penny the peahen and stressing over why she’s gone off her fruity nibbles and is favoring sunflower seeds, doing battle with the dandelions, and traipsing over the moors. 

Fruity nibbles.... again!  

     You can buy wands, broomsticks, every manner of cape, herb, powder, candle, or other spell paraphernalia.  A Witchcraft-themed bed and breakfast welcomes followers to town.  

There are things I’ve wanted to accomplish in life that have so far eluded me.  And some people I could do without.  Maybe conventional channels are not the answer.  Maybe Witchcraft is.  It seems like witches would be open-minded people.  They’d certainly be interesting.  I’ve found an online course based in Glastonbury where I could learn to be a witch in a few short weeks, but I still wouldn't meet other people.  

I think I have to go to town and  join a group.  I’m not sure how that would work exactly; maybe I’d buy a how-to book and look meaningfully into the clerk’s eyes.

     It dawned on me that that maybe I should not be so isolationist here in The Pink Cottage; maybe I should get out more, become involved in a local activity, something where I could meet local people and be a part of a community. 

    First activity that comes to mind is Lamping.  It’s kind of a sport I guess, the first community gathering I witnessed.  Very local, I’ve seen it out the window at night, beams flickering across the fields.   Lamping is the practice of attaching giant lights to jeeps, shining those lights across the nighttime dark fields until you spot a hare.  The hare is mesmerized by the light.  That’s when you shoot it.  I reassess.  I have no gun, no jeep, no lamp, and I like my hares alive and bouncing white-tailed across the moor.

     Then I think, I do love animals, how about joining the Badger Protection League?  Badgers are big news in England, and people like naturalist Sir David Attenborough and Ab Fab Joanna Lumley are amongst the League’s members. There are a ton of pro-Badger organizations all over the country.  
     Badgers can carry tuberculosis and infect cattle.  Lots of people want the badger population culled.  Others want the badgers inoculated.  Still others don’t even believe the badgers are the real reason bovine TB is spreading.  The government has sanctioned a cull in Somerset this June.  It’s a very divisive subject.  Now, I’ve never seen a badger, but there’s a bunch of them in the wood next door.  They’re nocturnal and elusive.  You know they’re there because you twist your ankle in the burrows they dig.  

Badgers live here.

     Badgers are a protected animal in England, even though they are a member of the weasel family, but lots of farmers are not fond of them because of herd infection.  A very complicated issue.   Brian May from the band Queen is the VP of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  He’s also an astrophysicist and a leading member of the Badger Protection League.  If I joined the League there would be lots of protests to attend where I could meet like-minded badger lovers.  Maybe I’d get to meet Brian May.  I always liked Queen.  The problem is I don’t think belonging to the Badger Protection League would endear me to the farmers in my neighbourhood (yes, with a u).  I wouldn’t be able to voice my pro-Badger sentiments.  I wouldn’t even be able to attend the Badger Night Walk protests across Somerset without alienating those around me.  I’d just be a silent Badger lover in the confines of my own home, not meeting other Badger lovers.  That’s kind of what I am already.  Maybe I'll just donate to the cause.  You can too.

     That pretty much leaves Witchcraft.   We’re five miles from Glastonbury, arguably one of the Witchcraft centers of England, if not the world.   It’s home to the Arthurian legend, it claims to be Avalon (but then so do a lot of other places), and it’s a New Age center. 

     It’s also crammed with stores selling every witch accessory a beginner could want. A friend told me the place is lousy with witches and that there is some interesting business going on behind those closed doors.  There are at least four bookstores on one small stretch of street that offer anything and everything to do with the occult, including how-to books on Witchcraft.

      I'm thinking Witchcraft is the ticket.  Then my husband reminds me that sometimes I already am a witch. At least I think that's what he said.  He's just given me one more reason to take up the craft. 

THIRTY THINGS IN THIRTY DAYS

It’s an education relocating from the city to the country; from ten years Skid Row adjacent to a tiny town in Somerset; kind of like being Lisa Douglas from Green Acres, without the hair, the accent, and the millions. 

 

My preconceptions of life in rural England come from a schizophrenic blend of Downton Abbey, Straw Dogs, Cold Comfort Farm, Withnail and I, The League of Gentlemen and all things Jane Austen.   This month in the country has been an education.  Every day I learn something new. 

Here are thirty things I’ve learned in thirty days.

Peafowl sleep in trees. (Penny in her tree at dawn)

Farmers post signs advising people walking the pathways through their property to keep dogs on leash.

Neospora is a parasite found in dog feces that can cause pregnant cows to abort.

When a neighbor you've never met puts a notice on your door listing pertinent local information, and that note contains your actual names handwritten on it, your neighbors are not stalkers they are merely kind.

Church bells are loud.

Our local spiritual center offers a Dolphin Rebirthing workshop, where you can be ‘rebirthed’ under water while listening to recordings of dolphin cries.

Daffodils grow in the ground, not in clear plastic packaging.

Jackdaws in your chimney make lots of noise.

March/April is lambing season and they are ridiculously cute.  These are our neighbors.

Electric fences keep sheep in their fields.

If you walk ten miles to an organic farm market, you will be too tired to eat what you’ve bought. 

Badgers are bigger than you’d think.

If you put a sofa out back of your property in the fall, the badgers will dismantle it and carry it away, including the carcass, by the following spring. 

You can hike to the top of Lollover Hill at Easter to see the three crosses placed there by the congregation of the local church. 

Cell reception is iffy.

Sometimes people in jeeps with giant flashlights come in the middle of the night to search for things on the moor beside your house.

There are many more earthworms than your garden variety brown type.

The Large Blue Butterfly was brought back from near extinction and thrives on Combe Hill. 

Sheep poo looks like small black licorice drops.

Sometimes farmers play little games with hikers, pointing public access signs in the wrong direction.

When you are traipsing through a mud covered field, and ask a farmer the way, and he directs you down an even muddier field, chances are he is not laughing 
with you.

There’s a novelist in the area whose excellent books I have been devouring.

Creative envy occurs even in the country.

Somerset cider is delicious.

There are fireplaces in pubs and grand houses the same size as a studio flat in New York.

You can buy great books at a charity shop.

There is a butcher who can’t tolerate the thought of actually killing an animal.

You can make chutney out of practically anything.

‘Scarecrow’ birds are used on thatched roofs to keep real birds off.

Billowing smoke behind your house does not mean the Santa Anas are blowing and you’re going up in flames.  It means that your neighbor at the vicarage has brush to get rid of, as he kindly explains to you when you run panic stricken from your house.

Many lessons....