Myiasis

The night is filled with the sound of Barn Owls passing secrets across the evening air. A bass-filled bellow from the cow field drowns out the discordant bustle from the duck shed, both illuminated by the halfmoon shadows, casting blue, illusionary appendages of ripening apple trees across the tipi wall.

Our last day on the Lizard was spent lovingly trimming the hooves of the flock at the Ruan Major Farm. Unfortunately, one of the sheep, number 72, was also suffering from a bout of flystrike . Thankfully, we were able to help the poor beast before the damage had gone too far, which can happen within 48 hours. There is a moral and emotional balance in caring for farm animals, somewhere between practicality and nurturing is the sweet golden spot that warms the soul and fills a person with a sense of belonging. You become part of a cycle between the environment, the fauna, and the eternal. Each element playing it's part in fulfilling the other participants. You learn to respect and admire the flow of country life. With a background from urban areas (Detroit, Atlanta, Anchorage with some brief stints in London), having an opportunity to reach back into the rural lifestyle and live by that cycle was really a gift. Thanks Jane and Rob !

Confessions from the Cornish Countryside

"You're gonna have to pay for that envelope."

I am in the local Spar, surrounded by the white-haired masses that congregate in the village of Mawnan Smith. Each member stands dutifully in queue for their copy of the treasured Guardian, of which there are always too few on a Saturday morning. Some look a bit perturbed, probably due to the late opening of the shop, which has prolonged their precisely planned out day by exactly seventeen minutes.

"You need to pay for that envelope before you write an address on it."

The voice, a bit peculiar like it had given up halfway through puberty and remained in limbo awaiting its next testosterone kick to guide it home, belonged to the postal employee / shopkeeper that continued to insist. Now I am lengthening the stay of the growing masses behind me, and I can feel their eyes examining my undertakings and making mental notes of the foreign way I go about my business.

"People take the envelopes and then mail them without paying for them. So you have to pay for the envelope beforehand."

Thankfully, the shopkeeper has instructed me on the basics of commerce, perhaps to calm the uncomfortable agitation behind me. The small talk has subsided and the shifting weights indicate that the extending queue has become restless, tired of the fluorescence emanating from the overheads, the faint buzz resonating within their hearing aids, the greenish glow playing tricks on their cloudy, cataract-ridden gaze.

His Cornish twinge constructs a conspiring thought that the policy must have been handed down over centuries. A policy that has no clear bearing of rationality other than the systematic approach to 'how things are done around here.' No doubt this policy has kept this store in the shopkeeper's family for generations.

It seems odd that I am standing directly in front of the shopkeeper's till, addressing the letter that will be in his hands in less than ten seconds, not hiding anything from his overly watchful eye and yet he insists on policy over common courtesy and mutual respect.

I wonder if he is brooding over the interaction as I am now, if he is wondering if the transaction could have been handled in a better manner. I wonder if he is questioning his policy as less customers come into his shop to mail a letter, instead choosing to wait and mail it from the city center where they can avoid the annoyance of the inbred policy of suspicion. Probably not.

Maybe he just needs his morning cuppa to get him on the path of courteousness.