Destructive work of an environmentalist

Old grandma broke five of the back ribs, and when she was in good hands in the hospital, me alone went to our summer place, to do some destructive work at least for an environmentalist, namely clean up. Well, first thing was to recycle, a very environmentally correct behavior. The Polish building carpenter left the wall in one pile outside the window, wood, insulation material and leaves in a mess. So what I did was to make seven of them instead; nails, sticky yellow fluff, wooden planks with nails, one without nails and one with nails taken out, garbage (cigarettes and plastics..) and one with tar paper. A pile of stones was already there.

But the recycling of 8 months old mess, was also a destructive work, not just because of taking things apart and removal of the nails from the wood, but I also destroyed homes for 'thousands' of harvestman and house louses, 'one' pill millipede (most certain Glomeris marginata) and also some mushrooms, some of the bugs fled away, other I guess was clamped when the environmentalist in her rain boots and big gloves started to throw things around. I wondered in my move, if they would have been happier in the mixed pile than in the sorted one's. BUT, we can't have that pile right outside the window and the impression for me was that the yellow fluff wasn't so good for the environment, it was really sticky. But so many creatures lived there, so I suppose it was a very good habitat for small creatures like harvestman's food. Harvestman also eat ticks, and we have a lot in the summer place, wasps, ground beetles, centipedes, wolf spiders and some ants (Myrmicinae an the large Camponotus herculaneus, among others) also do so, and I saw all of them in that pile. What would happen if the Polish building carpenter could have made some piles himself? That would have save some time for me at least! And would not have made a habitat for creatures? And when they destroy whole houses, do they just take it to the dump in one pile (and in the same time makes a lot of habitat for small creatures) or to the place for incineration of garbage and make some heat for housing of it? Did I do more of a destructive work when I tried to make the mess more organized?

And I admit that I destroyed more.. A lot of ticks in the garden.. so if you don't have bugs who eats them, another (easier) way is to mow the grass. Garden is not so big, but grass left to the wild from last fall is high! And it's not just ticks there; grasshoppers, butterflies, green lacewings (Neuroptera, or net-winged insects, same order as the cool 'ant lion') and other insects with wings, had to move to another place. Grass was cut with an electric trimmer when the gasoline driven lawnmowers "Klippo" didn't want to start (I didn't know the right jerk, now I know..), so no gasoline used, but a lot of electricity and I think that the trimmer saved some more lives than Klippo because of the spinning rope and not a metall blade, but I don't know.

And if that was not enough...

I also saw down 2-3 meters of the canopy of the wild apple trees. Why? Because it was high.. it was to much shade so the honeysuckle was on its way back.

So here I was, in the middle of the nature- just destroying it! One day, trying to build up a forest, another day take it away.. Well, its just the way of life.. and no one wants to use it if the summer place is in a mess. At least, I thought out there, I didn't have to go to the gym! (and gyms needs a lot of resources.. heating to the buildings, plastics for tools, electricity to make all the tools, transportation for the tools, etc..).

Well, neighbors came and told me that it was nice (they could finally use the pathway next to our house), so my hope is that someone in my family wants to go there and use it, because I have to stay with my grandma.

That was the story of acknowledgment.. and it was fun!