Grass...

I find early man fascinating.  These people wandering about the earth had to feed themselves by the 'sweat of their brow' and those with gardens know how hard that work can be.  Yet ancient man fed himself, sheltered and clothed himself, and eventually built cities and expanded across the globe.
I find using the hoover hard enough...
However some thing's puzzle me, who was first to drink cows milk?  Who discovered flax could be turned into cloth?  Who stood looking at grass and worked out which grasses could be made into bread?  Let alone who ploughed into the water and discovered rice!  We take such things for granted but for many years early man had to work them out for himself.  Looking at the grass the gardener has allowed to grow in the gardens I began to puzzle over such important questions, this of course not being connected to Francis Pryor's book 'Home' which I just happen to have begun reading.  

Imagine yourself growing up in a family somewhere on earth, you needed a family to give you birth, and with the whole world before you the search for existence begins.  Already the family have discovered much, a nomad existence following the herds, killing one every so often as required, seeking water, carrying all the treasures of the house, if you had one.  Are there pet animals?  Donkeys were not domesticated until around 5000 BC or was it later?  If you possess anything it must be carried as you move.  How often do you move?  I suspect that each day means an effort to seek an improvement in the tools and materials you use and eat.  Fruits come in season, who plants them?  Experimenting all the time with new foods and materials how quickly does your technology advance?  
Then there is pain and sickness.  Early man has been shown to have attempted brain surgery in many parts of the world.  Sickness would kill children early as it does still in too many places, and what pain relief do you have?   A nomadic existence has its drawbacks but this does not mean you do not think, indeed the opposite as considering the options is often urgently required.  There must also be many philosophic questionings when looking at the world around you or the heavens late at night.  
And what about those living by the sea, the view from there must change the mind set and be very different from those living high in the hills or in a desert.   
Francis Pryor and his type find a great deal of information regarding such as those living in the Fens in days gone by but what about those so much further back, so little is known about them.  Leaving no writing is a bind really as the diaries would be very interesting and travelling about hinders research into them.  Times and dates are often spurious, these change from one 'dig' to another I notice and opinions vary according to taste often enough. 
I think I must have been on the grass this afternoon...!

A trip round all the charity shops today did not aid me in my quest for an outfit for next weeks opening.  The suggestion of Mr Grumpy could not be achieved neither could the Child snatcher from some film I have not seen however that appears a good suggestion.  Some sort of nasty children's story character sounds good if I could think of one.  However the walk through the parched gardens was uplifting, big fish as well as Goldfish in the pond, some flowers bright and cheerful and this rose on the way down there hanging over a wall.  It makes you wonder when you consider the variety of 'grass' that fills the earth.