Every month Tonia and I send a little bit of money, not a lot, to the Woodland Trust, because, well, we like trees, and the Trust likes to plant them. The woods near our home, the one that I talk about so often on the podcast, is in fact a Woodland Trust project. Back in 2000 they bought a few fields in front of our house, and then stuck thousands of little saplings into the ground there. Those saplings grew into trees, and now there is a proper woods, literally, right on our doorstep. We watch the seasons change in this woodland, glean fruit there in the autumn, and every one of our dogs has known this woods by heart. One of them is even buried there. Its a very special place, our woods, and we love it. Today I received a fund-raising letter from the Woodland Trust, asking for some special help with a new project. Theyre raising money to plant four new woodlands in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to mark the WWI Centenary. In Wales, theyve identified a 120 acre site in the Gwendraeth Valley for the centenary woods, and the deadline to raise money for this project is the end of August. The proposed woodland is, I discovered, located but a stones throw from where my son, Zach and his wife, Laura, are buying their first home, and where they will someday be raising a family. Today I was quite taken with the idea that my someday grandchild could one day walk in the new woods, and maybe even come to know it by heart. That he or she could learn to appreciate the natural world the way I did as a child: by being in it. I like that idea a lot. I dont, as a rule, ask people to support the projects that I support, because there are a lot of good causes out there, and many an organization does good work. The way I see it, if one is inclined to support a charity, one will surely find and support a charity that is meaningful to oneself, in some way. That said, the Woodland Trust project has a deadline that is fast approaching and if the funding goal isnt met the woodland will not be planted. It seemed, therefore, a good time to mention, in passing, that theres this charity I support that does good work, and its called the Woodland Trust. I thought it also might be worth mentioning just in case you like trees, or on the off chance the WWI Centenary is meaningful to you, or in the event you remember, fondly, the podcast I once recorded in a snowy woods, or assuming that you want future generations to learn about nature by being in it, or with the proviso that your name on a tree in a woodland in Wales is the closest youll ever come to being here, that a person could, if one were so inclined, send just a little bit of money to the Woodland Trust by visiting their website here: woodlandtrust.org.uk/donate/centenary-woods/wales/ Thanks. https://youtube/watch?v=QwT437Ot7zM
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:32:36 +0000
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