Falling on Stony Ground.

It surprises me that, having lived in the Shire for over sixteen years, only now am I coming to be troubled by the acorns and other tree seeds littering the surface of the tarmac lanes. (In the circumstances, ‘littering’ is the wrong choice of participle, but I’ll leave it in place for the sake of adding irony.)

They are ubiquitous because there are a lot of hedgerow trees in these parts, so their number must run well into the thousands. There they lie, each with the potential to become a mighty tree contributing to the green health of our benighted planet, but condemned to be crushed and wasted under the disinterested tread of gas-guzzling vehicles.

I realise that I, too, drive a car, but that’s largely because the culture we’ve developed leaves me little choice. And so I know it’s complicated, but I still feel the sting of something valuable being wasted.