I spent 3 weeks in Austria in July and August 2019.

I stayed at a friend’s house that was on the edge of a small town by a stream with mountains beyond the neighboring fields.

The man’s daughter and her husband who took care of him brought this to my attention.

The lady said that in past years there were butterflies of all kinds and legions of house flies. But this year none.

There were no butterflies, houseflies, no birds singing.

She felt it was from all the chemicals being sprayed all over.

Her man felt it had a lot to do with the still present effects of the Chernobyl disaster.

I spent a lot of time out side in the garden by the stream.

I did see a few small flies, not houseflies, and a couple of white butterflies but hardly any.

And I saw a bird on 2 occasions by the stream and sparrows and pigeons in the  towns at the cafes to get table crumbs.

But the only bird sounds I heard were from crows that flew around and roosted on top of an apartment  house on the far side of the wood lined stream.

I thought of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring.

It seems as though the pesticides kill the beneficial insects and don’t ever eradicate the harmful bugs.

I found this on an internet search:

Last year, 40% of honey-bee colonies in the US died. … But the honey bee is just one of many insects in decline — 40% of the world’s insect species are in decline, according to a February 2019 study.

.Jun 21, 2019

Bees and insects dying at record rates are sign of 6th mass …

www.businessinsider.com › Science › News

So what can we do?

Poison is poison and kills the good along with the bad.

 There are natural pest and weed controls that won’t harm beneficial insects or you or I.

Let’s start using those practices.

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