Back in 1987, there was a hurricane in the South East of England, which felled six of the seven famous oaks from which the town gets its name. They were replaced soon after but unfortunately, shortly after that took place they were killed by some vandals. Idiots, i hope i hear you cry. Well, the time has come to reveal to the world, or rather the homoeopathic dilution of the planet's population reading this blog, that sadly i know who those people were. I won't be drawn further except to say that they weren't anarchists but were both members of the Socialist Workers' Party, which says it all, i think.
Moving swiftly on, as this is water under the bridge now and i expect there's a statute of limitations on arboricide, i should mention a crime which was taken very seriously in days of yore: ringbarking. In case you don't know, this is where the trunk of a tree has the bark and underlying layer of vessels carrying sap and water removed all round, which kills the tree in the same way as ash dieback does - no more water or minerals get further than the ring and the tree dies of thirst. The Liverpool Care Pathway for trees in other words. This is something which i would assiduously avoid, and for that reason i eschew most bark- or cambium-based herbal remedies. Luckily though, trees have more to offer than their roots, bark, cambium or timber.
So here's the video:
The trees mentioned are:
Betula alba - the silver birch. Parts used: Leaves.
Tilia cordata - linden tree. Parts used: Leaves and fruit.
Sambucus nigra - elder. Parts used: leaves, cambium, blossom, berries. Mostly edible but some parts are poisonous.
Aesculus hippocastanum - horse chestnut. Parts used: leaves, nuts. Poisonous.
Crataegus oxyacanthoides - common hawthorn. Parts used: leaves, berries.
Sorbus aucuparia - rowan. Parts used: berries, sap.
Incidentally, this video failed to post on Facebook, so far as i can tell, this morning, so i ended up having to post it anyway. Another video should appear tomorrow morning, the hundredth as it happens, then it'll be Sophie Gray's birthday.
Apologies for the choppy sound in the middle, but i still wanted to post this.
Links:
How to recognise ash dieback:
More information here:
www.forestry.gov.uk/chalara
Advice on helping prevent spread:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20176720
There's also this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.iasess.ashtag
What this video hasn't got in it, thank goodness, is any visual signs of ash dieback, because as far as i could tell, there wasn't any in the trees i noticed. Presumably it's only a matter of time, sadly.
I don't actually use ash at all herbally, as i prefer to avoid using trees, particularly the bark, because it seems disrespectful and unsustainable. However, it has been used in the past and i might consider eating the keys if i get the chance.
I'm a herbalist, not an ecologist, so i can't promise the information on ash dieback itself is accurate although the Forestry Commission are presumably better. Asian Fraxinus excelsior trees are completely resistant to ash dieback, so it seems to have been there in the past. In Denmark, about 10% of the trees were resistant and this may be the case here too. Again, i'm not an ecologist, but i imagine this might give us some hope unless the trees get replaced by something else.
I also want to celebrate the ash tree. I particularly like the Latin name Fraxinus excelsior, although i realise that the rather striking species name of our native ash - EXCELSIOR! - is just a Latin comparative. Like the names of other trees in Latin, Fraxinus is feminine with a masculine form and declension, although this shifted, unsurprisingly, after the fall of the Roman Empire and in modern Romance languages the names of trees are often feminine.
Regarding the ecology of the tree itself, it has pinnate leaves which allow a lot of daylight through, so were it to be replaced by something like a sycamore, that would starve the ground underneath of light and reduce the number and diversity of herbs growing there, so it is still important to herbalists even though we rarely use it. It's also very thirsty and dislikes shadow. The former is quite important as it grows in floodplains (along with limestone rich higher ground), so i'm guessing it helps prevent flooding although i may be wrong.
Ash keys are edible, traditionally pickled, and appear to be spicy although i couldn't swear to that as i've never tried them. Other parts of the tree are purgative, diaphoretic, bitter, diuretic and astringent, suggesting some use but there are probably much better herbal remedies to use than that.
One way in which it really does score with human use is through its timber, which it produces very efficiently for a hundred to a hundred and forty years. This wood is particularly strong and springy, and is useful for furniture, wooden tools and panels in buildings. It's particularly good for joists and spears.
I hope this video will become dated in the right way when it's revealed that the situation was exaggerated and a false alarm, but i fear it won't.
Just on the sound issue, if anyone can tell me how i can get that sorted i would be most grateful.
The signs of ash dieback include dead leaves (as opposed to yellowing autumn leaves or ash keys, which i was surprised to discover are often mistaken for dead leaves), stems changing colour to purple and brown towards the ends and distinctive diamond-shaped lesions on the trunk. These are bare-looking patches which are narrower than they are tall and are quite wide.
Finally, this was filmed near Aylestone Meadows, an absolutely wonderful green wedge in the southwest of Leicester which the City Council keep trying to destroy for some reason.
More splurging today i'm afraid, due to starting this post on the mini-tablet, which rather unhelpfully just saved this locally and i'm now copying. At least that means this had a first draft for once.
Yesterday i briefly mentioned my slight unease at continuing to see myself as part of the home ed community now that the children are both at college, because now i no longer home educate in the commonly understood sense, although of course i still home educate because everyone does and it isn't even home education and so on, blah blah, you know the spiel. One possible danger of course is that i could lose touch, to the extent that i was ever in touch in the first place, with approaches apt to appeal to children. There are, however, a couple of reasons why that might not be so.
One of these is that i may only ever have been in limited touch with the needs of children anyway, and in fact due to my moderate but not total commitment to autonomous education, this could be said to be unnecessary in any case, though a varied life wherein one is able and willing to include children is probably important. Against this might be set the fact that many children with this way of life spend so little time actually at home as opposed to hanging out or sleeping over at other children's homes or doing other stuff with them that their inclusion in the lives of other children and adults might make this less important. We have a village which raises children in this community, both physically and virtually present, and we are not just families doing things in isolation unless it either suits us to do so, we are unlucky or we have been artificially isolated by a hostile social climate as engendered by, for example, local authorities scaring people into hiding or insufficient publicity regarding the reality of this approach to parenting.
One of the failures of school is that it severs the connection between adults and children and segregates them. Part of that severance involves teachers being in loco parentis while being relatively unable to establish a natural rapport with the children, often through no fault of their own. Now, i of course do offer science, maths and other workshops for children who are not mine, and this is potentially questionable. It can lead to problems and is in danger of drifting towards schooling, something against which i strive. However, it differs in various ways from teaching. I am not waylaid by red tape and bureaucracy, by syllabi or curricula or by fear of bullying from the children. However, i see this as being part of the village. I must remain vigilant not to become "teachery", which is a risk in this situation.
One way in which i'm now trying to sidestep this issue is by attempting to participate in education in other ways. To this end, i am embarking on a concerted effort to make a series of educational YouTube videos. This project is still in its early stages and i am still learning how to put good videos together, and it is of course "no substitute for hands on" but they will improve and i also plan to link them, for people who are interested, to topic areas in the National Curriculum - it is a fact that some people do pay attention to that and i don't judge them for that although i had little interest in it myself. For those who are interested, here are the links to the two i've made so far which have not been deleted, both about soap making:
The other way in which i'm pursuing education, of course, is through writing books. I have plans for a number of these. So far, i've published one: 'You Could've Thought Of That', whose children's edition will soon be available from lulu.com (where the adult edition is already available here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-a-ure/you-couldve-thought-of-that-a-compendium-of-ideas-which-havent-been-thought-of-yet/paperback/product-20266026.html). The second one is of course 'Here Be Dragons', a bestiary and atlas which aims both to entertain and inform. Also, of course i plan to continue the science and maths sessions, and if possible start new ones on other subjects such as classical languages and philosophy if the interest is there, for as long as at least one child wants me to do so.
So what am i saying? I suppose that you can all rest assured that i will try to make sure i stay in touch with the needs of children, and that i hope you still see me as part of your village
