#fen drayton
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Water Forget-me-not
Water forget-me-not flowering amongst the grass along the side of one of the lakes, at RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes.
#cambridgeshire#canon#canonuk#fen drayton#fen drayton lakes#flora#flower#flowers#myosotis scorpioides#nature#nature reserve#outdoors#petals#plant#plants#rspb#spring#water forget-me-not
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Ely
Michael Drayton
Of all the Marshland Isles, I Ely am the queen:
For winter, eachwhere sad, in me looks fresh and green.
The horse, or other beast, o'erweighed with his own mass,
Lies wallowing in my fens, hid over head in grass:
And in the place where grows rank fodder for my neat,
The turf which bears the hay is wondrous needful peat:
My full and batning earth needs not the plowman's pains;
The rills which run in me are like the branched veins
In human bodies seen; those ditches cut by hand
From the surrounding meres to win the measured land.
To those choice waters I most fitly may compare,
Wherewith nice women use to blanch their beauties rare.
Hath there a man been born in me that never knew
Of Watersey the Leame, or the other called the New?
The Frithdike near'st my midst; and of another sort,
Who ever fished or fowled that cannot make report
Of sundry meres at hand, upon my western way,
As Ramsey Mere, and Ug, with the great Whittelsey?
Of the aboundant store of fish and fowl there bred.
Which whilst of Europe's isles Great Britain is the head,
No meres shall truly tell, in them, than at one draught,
More store of either kinds hath with the net been caught:
Which though some petty isles do challenge them to be
Their own, yet must those isles likewise acknowledge me
Their sovereign. Nor yet let that islet Ramsey shame,
Although to Ramsey Mere she only gives the name;
Nor Huntingdon, to me though she extend her grounds,
Twit me that I at all usurp upon her bounds.
Those meres may well be proud that I will take them in,
Which otherwise perhaps forgotten might have been,
Besides my towered fane, and my rich citied seat,
With villages and dorps, to make me most compleat.
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Café du matin devant la haie de la voisine ! #iPhone #iPhone14Pro #iPhone14ProMax #AppleRAW #photooftheday #shotoniphone #shotoniphone14pro #fendrayton #cambridge #uk #england #england🇬🇧 #angleterre #rspb_love_nature #rspb #lake #lakelife #lakeview #coffee #cafe #summer (à Fen Drayton Nature Reserve) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjPpvmqIWP2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
#iphone#iphone14pro#iphone14promax#appleraw#photooftheday#shotoniphone#shotoniphone14pro#fendrayton#cambridge#uk#england#england🇬🇧#angleterre#rspb_love_nature#rspb#lake#lakelife#lakeview#coffee#cafe#summer
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Botanists of Kew Gardens plotting to appropriate Indigenous-cultivated varieties of wild rice from the Great Lakes and fantasizing about using wild rice as the ultimate crop in plantations worldwide to strengthen the Empire: Trade embargoes against America during the revolution meant that Britain needed a new source for a cheap staple crop to feed plantation slaves in the Caribbean and impoverished working class in London [to keep slaves and the poor pacified and subjugated], so while Joseph Banks was trying to appropriate breadfruit from people of the South Pacific to introduce it as a food crop in the Caribbean, Banks and other imperial botanists were simultaneously excitedly plotting to acclimatize wild rice to climates outside of North America.
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Wild rice, inured to the hazards of a changing climate, would be the pioneer plant of a responsive imperial ecology, on the path paved by learned men associated with a variety of British scientific or government institutions. [...] On a cold day in December, Sir Joseph Banks told members of the Horticultural Society of London he had discovered a proven method for making warmer-climate plants frost resistant. While the method could be applied to tropical plants, it was North American wild rice (Zizania aquatica) that provided the inspiration for his lecture, later published as the essay “Some Hints Respecting the Proper Mode of Inuring Tender Plants to Our Climate.” Banks described acclimatization experiments with specimens of Zizania, transplanted from Canada to the pond on his Spring Grove estate outside London and in the fens on his property in Lincolnshire. Banks -- president of the Royal Society from 1778 to 1820 and the most powerful scientific patron in the Anglophone world -- had been interested in Zizania’s special qualities since the 1770s, believing it to be a highly adaptable plant. [...]
John Mitchell inserted a long footnote on wild rice into his 1767 treatise, The Present State of Great Britain and North America. Mitchell, the Virginia-born physician and botanist best known for his map of North America [...] recommended wild rice as part of a broader strategy for Britain to gain control of its food supply [...]. [I]n northern colonies wild rice would supply frontier settlements, reducing their dependence on imports. Once improved for commercial cultivation wild rice would also provide a unique article into the imperial trade. If “duly cultivated” like white rice, Britain “might have rice from our northern as well as our southern colonies. [...]
A decade later [after the 1767 publication of Mitchell’s book], outbreaks of Hessian fly-infested wheat, the Bengal famine, the loss of exports from the United States, destructive hurricanes in the Caribbean, and serious harvest shortfalls in Britain and Ireland combined to give renewed urgency to policies promoting a wider range of starches for cheaply feeding slaves, the poor, and import-dependent colonies. It was in this context that a number of people revived Mitchell’s idea of incorporating Zizania into the imperial economy. Much as Banks had perceived the value of breadfruit “procur’d with no more trouble than that of climbing a tree and pulling it down,” so too did he become intrigued by proposals for growing wild rice as a low-cost subsistence crop suited to colder regions with limited agricultural potential. Harvest shortfalls and interruptions to the provisions trade through the period of the Napoleonic Wars stimulated continued experimentation with wild rice in the hope that it might help diversify and secure the grain supply. If this wild food could be improved it would yield the multiple benefits of abundance and the productive transformation of wastelands with little effort. [...]
Moreover, all European observers assumed that Zizania “sows itself”—that Indians only harvested but did nothing to control or develop the plant, which reproduced as independently and copiously as a weed. Believing that Zizania thrived “in Abundance spontaneously,” requiring little expertise or labor [...].
In his fitting epigraph to “The Natural History of the Wild Rice,” Thomas Holt White, brother of Gilbert White, quoted Ecclesiastes 11. 1: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” The potential rewards of this North American grass recalled a biblical parable: one could simply broadcast seeds into unimproved wetlands and return later to find a harvestable foodstuff. [...]
Naturalists’ interest in exploiting wild rice was thus an attempt to respond to variouscontingencies the empire faced after the late eighteenth century. Following the Seven Years’ War, the unprecedented expansion of colonial territory encouraged investigation of plants like wild rice, one among many attempts to address the scaled-up problem of provisioning through initiatives to promote a more efficient use of natural resources. Banks’ work on wild rice aligned with his much broader goal of achieving what historian Richard Drayton calls a “nature’s government”: a comprehensive vision for creating a more effective empire by manipulating its diverse colonial environments -- from tropical islands to boreal forests -- through expert knowledge, ecological exchanges, and scientific agriculture.
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Anya Zilberstein. “Inured to Empire: Wild Rice and Climate Change.”
#joseph banks AGAIN#by total coincidence i was reading about wild rice today and Banks shows up in the very first sentence of this article
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Evening stroll around Fen Drayton Lakes Nature Reserve, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Camera: Canon PowerShot SX70
#amature photographer#amature photography#cambridgeshire#huntingdon#sunset#lakeside#nature photography#nature#nature reserve
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On this day ... in 2019
On this day … in 2019
Tue 19 Apr 22: not so long ago but just maybe this was the last bacon and Brie sandwich I ever ate. This is at the Three Tuns in Fen Drayton. Bacon and Brie are both on my verboten food list these days.
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K32P7352c Mute Swan, RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes, January 2022 by bobchappell55 Thanks to everyone who takes time to view, fave or comment on my pictures. https://flic.kr/p/2n4xB7n
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Produce Picker Packers
Job title: Produce Picker Packers
Company: Meyer-Scott Recruitment
Job description: Produce Pickers and Packers Meyer Scott Ref: VR/08084 GBP8.91 per hour Temp ongoing April to September 2021 Its an exciting time as we are getting ready again for our well respected client whom we have an excellent relationship with…
Expected salary: £8.91 per hour
Location: Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire
Job date:…
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Latest Permanent Eyeliner in Fen Drayton
Find the latest Permanent Eyeliner in Fen Drayton. El'sthetica Lounge are available to provide you a phenomenal hairdressing experience and exceptional service.
https://g.page/elsthetica-loungeuk?share
#SemiPermanentMakeUpFenDrayton#PermanentEyelinerFenDrayton#PlasmaPenTreatmentFenDrayton#PowderBrowsFenDrayton#TattooRemovalFenDrayton
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Bonded Rubber Mulch Price in Fen Drayton #Recycled #Rubber #Mulch #Cost #Fen #Drayton https://t.co/CA9ZDMPvF5
Bonded Rubber Mulch Price in Fen Drayton #Recycled #Rubber #Mulch #Cost #Fen #Drayton https://t.co/CA9ZDMPvF5
— Bonded Rubber Mulch (@ukrubbermulch) November 1, 2020
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Mute Swan
A mute swan out for a casual paddle, on one of the lakes at RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes.
#animal#animals#bird#birds#cambridgeshire#canon#canonuk#cygnus olor#fauna#fen drayton#fen drayton lakes#mute swan#nature#nature reserve#outdoors#rspb#spring#swan#swans#wildlife
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Playground Resurfacing Specialists https://t.co/6Y7nApfVJ0 #fen #drayton #cambridgeshire #playgroundresurfacing #playground #play #surfacing http://twitter.com/ukplayareas/status/1290712712322916354
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High Jump Landing Mats in Fen Drayton #High #Jump #Landing #Mats #Fen #Drayton https://t.co/5QvS21Z3WN
High Jump Landing Mats in Fen Drayton #High #Jump #Landing #Mats #Fen #Drayton https://t.co/5QvS21Z3WN
— Safety Mats (@safetymatsuk1) April 15, 2020
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One of the family behind you
One of the family behind you
Tue 29 Mar 22: I was on photo duty with Pippa (centre) in Fen Drayton with Carla and Vince Farrar and this shot of them in front of the war/peace memorial has got some interesting names on it. Firstly there’s a Jenkins. Further down there’s a couple of Edwards’s which makes it three Welsh names and that’s unusual for Cambridgeshire where there’s a noticeable absence of Jones’s etc.
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K32P5420c Common Darter, Fen Drayton Lakes, August 2021 by bobchappell55 Thanks to everyone who takes time to view, fave or comment on my pictures. https://flic.kr/p/2mTkHyP
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