rewilding, or, turning back the clock

[billy rubin]

okay. lookit this

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/25/it-fully-changed-my-life-how-young-rewilders-transformed-a-farm-and-began-a-movement?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

i live on 25 acres of former farmland. it was farmland, then it was strio mined, and then it was cheap hayfield.

my wife and i are rewilding it. from shallow heavy soil and grass hay, we re filling it up with native hardwoods, mast crops for wildlife that we can eat too, and a soil-rebuilding program that will take 100 years to finish.

ive already seen results. in the spring and summer, the property is a riot of butterflies. skimmers, whites, sulphurs, swalliwtails, monarchs, fritillaries (my favourites), as w re ll as mantids, walking sticks, lightninng bugs, noctuid moths, all sorts of things. we have possums (on the porch five minutes ago, in the cat food), raccoons, distant bobcats, coyotes, and skunks. enough deer that im going to blow them away in the spring so i can have a garden.

in the end, we ll have a climax ecosystem of deciduous woidlad, with enogh permaculture to keep us fed until we die.

thats the plan, anyway

[Dark Lightning]

Good on ya, Billy! Every little bit helps nature. I know a lot of cynical people, but I what I can...which in actuality ain't much, in a tract home.

[billy rubin]

tbink locally, act locally. i cant change a lot, but i can change whats within my reach.

i live i  a place where mowing ones lawn is a cultural necessity. i havent cut the grass in years. so my neighbours have the manucured floeer beds, but i have the butterflies, wasps, and bees.

bats too but not enough. im gathering wood to build a major bathouse, one that can hold 200 or 300,00 bats. ive got two telephone poles and need another

[Icarus]

Sometimes I think that Billy is a little bit weird.................but then I come to my senses and recognize that he lives in harmony with the earth, the flora and fauna, and the natural order of things.

Old mans nostalgia grips me when he tells us about his surroundings. Florida used to be something like what he describes.  We could go down any road for miles without seeing a another living soul.  The countryside was in its natural state and for the  most part peaceful and welcoming to those who treated it with respect.

When I was a kid, Florida had barely one million inhabitants. That is not many people for a state as large as Florida. If you travel from the southern tip around the horn to the western end of the panhandle, it is 800 miles or more. You would not see a single McDonalds, you would not see even one beer can cast aside on the side of the road. You sure as hell would never see a condominium. Yes, we had electric lights, and modest but entirely serviceable highways, we had indoor plumbing and we even had newspapers.

There was wildlife including Black Panther and Black bears, deer, racoons, armadillos, opossums, wild turkeys, and more. Fruit trees abounded. There were Guavas, Papayas, Japanese plums, Mulberry trees, wild bananas, wild strawberries, Wild blackberries, and lots more.

Now we have maddening traffic, pollution, road rage, and far too many humans, nearly 23 million of them. As much as I once loved my precious state, I would move to Vermont or somewhere if only I was not so damned old and tired.

[billy rubin]

i dont live in harmony with most anything, icarus. my son currently isnt speaking to me, my dog would rather hold it until he bursts than go on a walk with me, and the raccoons and possums hold me in utter disrespect.

i do okay with plants, but i think its because they cant tell me what they really think.

but youre right about the changes. my grandfather arrived in indian territory driving a wagon when he was ten years old. he lived to see the apollo space program.

you cant go home again.