After being away for a bit, one of the cool thing to come home to in spring time is that you don't even have to be gone for a long time, to see that nature has changed a lot with everything growing.
Trees are in multi green all of a sudden, the water in the creeks is still as high as it was (or even higher) but especially the flowers in the fields are blossoming a lot all of a sudden.
And with those flowers something interesting has been going on here over the last couple of years. One of the more hot topics of the last couple of years is the decline of insects and bugs in nature (although it doesnt always seem like that when you walk into a swarm of mosquitos at night) and that is a problem.
Less insects
Less bugs and critters means less pollination of the plants, also means less pollination of the crops with means catastrophe. Now I have no idea about nature and how much should be normal, but I do know when I am riding my bike through the field that I have a lot less bugs in the face, same as that you have a lot less on the winldshield while driving.
Have they gone anywhere else? I don't know. Is this populistic bullcrap leaning on the conspiracy theorists? I also don't know. But what I do know it is never a bad thing to have more green and more bugs.
Here in the area they have been taking this process quite seriously. In an area which was previously used as a tight grass field, all of a sudden it was mown to the ground. I had no idea why but later when I reached back here all of a sudden these meadow flowers were growing here and bugs were everywhere. Some serious plantation had been done.
Since there are also a lot of beekeepers in the region, I guess they all like it as the bees have not been doing such a good business with all of the rain from the previous weeks and months. A friend of mine makes here own honey here in the area, and she said that the bees didn't have a lot to eat as yet up until now, normally they would have produced some honey already. Not this year since it has been so wet.
Will all of this help anything at all?
I really don't know about all. I guess interfering with the plantation is another form of making nature more dependent on humanity. On the other hand let us face it, especially here in the Netherlands everything is all planned and regulated so nothing is 'natural' over here.
So every field with flowers we can get over here, I guess there is nothing wrong with that at all.
Apart from that, these flowers look stunning with super vibrant colours in there. I mean blue flowers? That has been a long time since I have seen such a dark form of blue. It gives a whole new vibe to the area instead of the tightly mowed grass. Not a bad thing either I suppose!
I guess only in a couple of years time we will see if these kinds of initiatives made a true difference in the amount of insects. This is ofcourse just a small drip in the sea of natural issues.
But the intention on solving this with more flowers...Hey, I am cool with that!