Visiting the UK

My uncle lives in a small village in the Thames Valley forty-five minutes from Oxford, England. His cottage is perched at the junction of a small wooded area and a field on the edge of his village. Over the various visits I have made to my uncle over the years, there have been sheep in that field, there has been corn, and now we have rape. Rape is the British name for the plant that produces the seeds from which canola oil is made.

In visiting with him this week, one of the traits one becomes aware of is how the psyche of a people are influenced by their nearness to farms and farmers. Outside the major metropoli, the British have a lot of farms spread amongst their towns and villages. Not surprisingly, the British are fanatical about their gardens. The awareness of the land and the effects on the land seem much more pronounced in the consciousness of my relatives and friends there than of my family and friends here in the US. The ultimate sense of individual responsibility for the welfare of the land is incumbent, in part, upon our awareness that by protecting our agricultural resources and the people that shepard them in sustainable and ethically upright ways we are acting in our own self-interest. When your neighbor is a farm and the farmer lives down the street this becomes totally obvious as I have observed on my many trips to the English countryside to see my family.
The top photo is my uncle's shed and the neighboring field of rape. The bottom photo is my cousin's place. Her 18 month old son is trying to escape the garden in adorable fashion. The field across the lane from her is fallow this season.