In Island Stories #9, on July 2, I shared with you a picture of the Konik horses that I saw in Oranjezon, on the north side of the island of Walcheren. A subscriber to this newsletter wrote to me to explain that the Polish word konik is the diminutive of koń, the Polish word for ‘horse.’ So the use of ‘Konik horse’ is read by anyone that speaks Polish as ‘a small horse horse.’
It is a late Friday evening on the island and time to go to sleep, but I want to share one more Konik picture with you, a reminder of all the natural beauty on this planet.
That is perhaps timely. This week, we saw concrete European Commission proposals presented to implement the often expressed ambition to cut carbon emissions to save the planet. But, unfortunately, the plans for climate action coincided with a demonstration of the powerful forces of nature that will increasingly threaten our existence if we continue to ignore scientists and all those that call for climate action.
Both the policymaking in Brussels and the floodings in Belgium and Germany are not far from where I live. But this summer on this island, the reality of our challenges on this rapidly changing planet are not the main theme of this newsletter. So instead, I will continue the ‘light’ format in themes for this summer and focus on the beauty of nature, local history, and the islands where I am spending my summer.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend, be kind to someone, enjoy nature, and enjoy the picture of those Koniks (not Konik horses :-) enjoying their piece of nature while you are reading this.
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Those Koniks are beautiful and I hope will be part of the islands forever. It looks so peaceful there unlike what is happening in other parts of Europe as well as in the west of the US. Here we are under a flash flood watch and hope it’s not what Germany experienced.
Glad you are able to rest and recuperate in such a lovely area.
Very nice Alexander, writing about nature is never lost on nature.
It's always good to see the Koniks thrive, this photo is a treasure in time, even in their feral circumstances today.
I'm following the devastation the flood is leaving behind.
People are calling this weather caused event a 'Water bomb' or Rain bomb'. We had one similar here in 2013. It happens very fast. The weathercasters saw it coming but had no idea how much the clouds were holding. I had to move to higher grounds while I was camping (It sounded like an oncoming train) out of a natural existing drainage carved for eons. This is where the water wants and needs to flow, still today . . .
I hope we learn to settle on this globe out of the way of these occurring weather dynamics in the future. I think Esri GIS is making a great effort by collecting data maps to point us in the right direction.
Thank you, I saved the Konik herd photo (-: