The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland

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The Running Hare is just the most sumptuously gorgeous book. John Lewis-Stempel is simply the best of the many outstanding nature writers we have today. His forte is writing in great detail about very small areas - by concentrating our minds on the detail he expands our knowledge and view of the world around us.

His column on nature and farming in Country Life won him Magazine Columnist of the Year in the 2016 BSME Awards. [3] His monthly column in The Countryman magazine began in March 2023. Description: A close up and intimate natural history by John Lewis-Stempel. By taking an abandoned field close to his farm, he observes in minute detail the behaviour of plants, birds and animals that are being displaced by agribusiness. In telling the story of one field, he tells the story of our countryside, our language, our religion and our food. But in transforming one field, he creates a haven for one particular animal close to his heart - the brown hare. Lewis-Stempel is a fourth-generation farmer gifted with an extraordinary ability to write prose that soars and sings, like a skylark over unspoiled fields. This wonderful book (a worthy follow-up to his brilliant Meadowland) is a hymn in praise of enlightened farming methods which reject lethal chemicals and allow insects, birds and flowers to thrive, as once they did.Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War: The Life and Death of the British Officer in the First World War (2011) In The Running Hare he 'borrows' a field to experiment growing corn along with wildflowers - the idea is to see how this old fashioned idea of doing things impacts on the wildlife of the area. Modern farming is all about yield, but Lewis-Stempel spells out loud and clear (often with statistics) the terrible effect this is having on our animals, birds and flowers. The farmers next door to his field are known as The Chemical Brothers for a reason! It can be a bitter cupful to swallow, even for those who understand some of the ecological cost of our modern ways of agriculture and science and intensive farming practices. Most people don’t even see the changes to our entire ecosystem these “progressive” practices have wrought in less than a single generation. The decimation of animal habitat and species and the equal decimation of plant variety and habitat. Englightening and stylish...Readers who enjoyed the author’s last book, Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field, will find much in the same vein here: a mix of agricultural history, rural lore, topographical description and childhood memories. I learned a good deal.... Lewis-Stempel is a fine stylist, adroitly conjuring scenes in which “medieval mist hangs in the trees” or “frost clenches the ground”..." (Sara Wheeler Observer)

This level of understanding and appreciation for the lives and tendencies of our fellow wild creatures raises the bar and shows us that it's always a relationship of give and take, with us - the humans - using our minds to comprehend how things are and how we can consciously make the best contribution for the highest good of everyone (and everything). One field, naturally sown and tended, attracted wildlife to it that were completely absent from the surrounding agri-cultured, chemically-induced fields. Hares, red-legged partridges, rabbits, pheasant, many different birds and insects were all drawn to Flinders, a field that the author tended with love and farmed with old methods rather than spraying with chemicals. Amongst the wheat, he sowed an abundance of wildflowers, horrifying neighbouring farmers who termed them ‘weeds’. Agriculture has decimated British nature so I admire anyone who makes an effort to reverse the process, even in a small way.Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society White Horse Bookshop Prize 2016. John Lewis-Stempel was winner of the Thwaites Wainwright Prize 2015 for MEADOWLAND. Along the way we learn a little about seemingly everything rural - agricultural history, scientific studies of bird and wildlife decline, botany, modern agriculture, Lepidoptera, Shakespeare, agrarian poetry, and the history of English hedges, just to name a few. He describes beautifully the changing of the seasons and the habits of animals such as the hares that make their home in his field. The book is a superb piece of nature writing. Ian Critchley, Sunday Times

The Running Hare pub is in St David’s Park, Ewloe, North Wales. You’ll find us just off the A494, close to Junction 33B of the A55 (North Wales Expressway). We’re also close to the B5125, handy for families visiting from Mancot, Sandycroft, and Dobshill. He sows the small field by hand. He also sows wide margins of wildflowers, to replicate the way fields had existed in the days before mechanical reaping and sowing, and lays out tables of seed to entice the birds. He uses no chemicals on his fields, and when he reaps he bundles the wheat into old-fashioned sheaves.

In general, I quite enjoyed reading this rather stylish and romantic account of Lewis-Stempel's project to turn an arable field into a sustainable wheat and wildflower field. His idea was to employ traditional and regenerative methods (including re-introducing bird and wildlife species) to achieve his final goal of producing a crop of wheat-sheafs. His desire was to to see just what could be done in a small area of land (15 acres), and just how much bio-diversity could be regained in the space of his short tenancy of two years. A stirring rural fantasia...Lewis-Stempel's heart and mind are absolutely in the right place. I salute him and I adored his appreciation of the quirky detail." ( The Times)