Dec 12
Well, they have probably had a frosty morn somewhere else…but we don’t talk about that place (where they were a bit rough with my girls).
The rest of the country has already experienced the frost but down here in the milder south west it’s our first proper one. Hurrah, a break from rain.
I love the ice crystals’ transformative power, the thick fur of a cows mane.
Dec 8
Over the last few months I’ve been recording some of the stuff which has been going on outside. It’s a time of change and senescence, of storing and stowing.
Mr or Mrs Jackdaw checking out next years nesting accomodation
Wild Carrot
The cows are getting their winter coats and eating plenty of hay.
The light is low and gentle.
It’s sometimes easy to get over attached to the indoors in winter, driving wind and rain causing mine and many a bottom to become welded to an armchair as a result. Having spent a good part of life doing an outdoor job I know that the only way to get-over-it is to get-out-in-it.
Thus today found me togged up and trowel wielding as I finally decided to plant the tulip bulbs in the tubs in the front yard. Luckily tulips are quite forgiving of procrastinating ways, people have been known to plant them in January. Gasp.
I go into the barn where I left the bulbs and all I find is a couple of empty nets. Storing and stowing. Storing and stowing. Hmm. I get on the phone and order some more.
Luckily, there is one bag which has escaped the mouse/squirrel/rat assault so I get down to business. What is it about about preparing soil for planting? I don’t know, I just love it…I did mention to fellow blogger Fran about my cruel ways with ditching plants and I thought of her as I gaily tossed last summers pelargoniums into the death bucket (wrong colour – another procrastinating moment – leaving it so late they only had deep pink ones left at the shop. Sigh. It’s the Cornish air).
Clearing out summer pelargoniums
This is a cunning trick which keeps the squirrels off your bulbs (if they haven’t already stolen them that is). After planting you tread the ground firmly, then get some dead leaves and scatter them over the area. This really foxes them – they look for disturbed ground and signs of digging. This method always worked for me in the city, though pots can be more vulnerable than the ground, depending on squirrel numbers and ingenuity.
Tulips in, treading down and leaf method deployed.
Back in September when it first started to get cold I posted about wood including how much we were going to need over the winter.
The woodpile three months on
The wind has damaged a barn, lifting old slates right off. This scaffolding tower was found dumped on the streets of London years ago and came in very handy with renovations.
I’m trying to think of things to do with baling twine. Any ideas?
Dec 2
For this off ranch ramble I turn to the north and head for the sea. I hope you enjoy.
The days are short now and when we arrive at this river valley which runs into sea on the north coast we don’t have much time before the sun sets. As we drive down the steep lane the sea and an old mill house come into view. I don’t know how long it’s been since this was a working mill but you probably couldn’t ask for a better spot for a peaceful holiday. Nestling in the hill it has a terrace which overlooks the valley and river.
It’s cold and we wrap up in hats, scarves and gloves and set off inland into the woodland in search of the famous wriggly oak tree. We had a Cornish Pasty on our journey here so we’re well set up for the tramp. The Wildlife Trusts manage these woods and pastures and you can find out about lots more places to see ancient trees on the Ancient Tree Forum here.
On the way we go through the mill house garden – our friends who are staying here are not yet back from their outing along the Camel Trail. I like the spiral of wild flowers the owners have created on the grass, in fact I think they have done a good job with helping this place blend in with the wider landscape while still having a few flat areas for lolling on. They have made some interesting surfaces with the local materials too. All helped along by the Avant Gardener I think.
We go down a wide grassy ride and pass some little black sheep on the hillside, probably part of the management programme for helping out the rare Pearl Bordered Fritillary butterfly. Opposite, the valley side is cloaked with scrubby wind blown oaks, their leafless limbs making a soft tangle of greys and browns in the low winter sun. We enter the woods on a small winding path which sticks close to the riverside.
I glimpse the wriggly oak.
We hang out for a while amongst its branches.
Then we turn back and head down towards the beach, joining up with the South West Coast Path.
On the way we pass the house and a bit further on there is an area of low grass, swept into ripples by the wind.
We step down onto the beach, crunching onto the dark grey pebbles, hearing the tumbling water of the river meeting the sea. The light is fading and there is a bitter coolness in the air, bouncing off the slick black rocks near to shore and buffeting the crests of the waves.
We talk about people we know and do beachy things…
Later, we go inside with the others and sit by the fire, drink tea and eat chocolate biscuits.
Nov 11
Today it feels like we’ve slipped into winter – how did that happen?
Today the trees look stark against the beautiful sky, it is damp and cold, and there is an earthy smell of decay. But strange discrepancies abound too. A Foxglove is in flower still, it’s delicately freckled throat facing the sun.
Today the sky was dramatic, pristine. It has been clear blue, shot through with every conceivable shape and shuffle that a cloud can make, smoky puffs of dark grey, silvery sides of mackeral , a mountain range in the distance kissed by low sun and a wash of the softest brush.
Today I feel sad.
Today I wish that my father was still alive, and that B & G were not ill, and that I could capture what is not possible.
I can hear the whirr of the starlings wings as they approach, flying along the valley edge, making their way to the roost on Bodmin Moor. And then they are gone, the breath of their beating wings landing on my shoulders.
Nov 5
LYING DOWN
Belita, Lucy, Mary-Rose
CLIMBING
EATING
It’s only fair they get some tea too
We made our hay in August, this was very late but it was such a wet summer. You can find out about it here and here if you’re interested.
The moon was full
NOT HAVING A BONFIRE OBVIOUSLY THIS IS JUST IN HONOUR OF 5TH NOVEMBER BONFIRE NIGHT
Oct 29
Overnight last Friday a fierce north wind from the arctic swept over the whole country, swishing the prevailing south westerleys out of the way in its advancing grip. On the weather map it shows an arc of clear blue advancing southwards like a cartoon shadow, swallowing up the muted softness of the taupe and brown. We are the last to receive it, it looks like liquid fill.
The moon was full and the stars were bright in the night, there was a sliver of silvery light on the reveal. And we wake to brilliant sunshine, the sky is clear and cloudless and the wind is strong, the boughs of trees are being stirred to the core. Everywhere is rustling and sighing. I put on my gloves, hat and boots and go forth, as I do not want to miss this rare crispness, this wringing out of damp and mist.
It is the kind of cold that cuts through and I wrinkle my nose as it stiffens in the wind. The light is diamond sharp and the contrasts are deep, sometimes there is nothing in the shadows except black.
My feet make a crackling sound on the fallen leaves and then a crunching as I hit some sun dried shale. I take the route down the bridlepath, across the stream by way of a granite bridge and then cut away to the rivers’ edge and upwards into the woods. I have trodden this way many times before and today the going is hard on the sloping fields, the surface broken up into deep uneven divets where the resident dairy herd have chewed up the saturated ground with their hooves.
I can hear the whoosh of wings as I disturb a wood pigeon. Crows are calling high in the sky and there is the ping and chatter of smaller birds in the thickets and understorey.
I roll under an industrial looking electric fence and come into the pasture which borders the river. To my left there is high knoll stubbed with trees and then below to the right on the other side of the river are flat meadows punctuated with flag Iris.
I make my way to the wood which rises steeply away to the left, almost a cliff, the trees at a dizzy angle above me, the sunshine illuminating each branch and leaf. Once upon a time this was a working quarry so this is secondary woodland. 
I notice that there has been some major earth working going on and a track has been made by shifting tons of shaley soil, presumbably for efficiency to link the fields either side of these old quarries and woodland. I can see the scars on the bank which have been left by the digger. It makes it feel less secret than before and I have to scramble up an unstable bank, stones and soil slipping behind.
It brings it home that there are many ways of thinking about land. To me this is a place of living history, a place of beauty which reveals the story of its past in subtle ways. To this particular farmer it seems that it is in the way, an inconvenient rumple on what might be a smooth featureless land of endless green. But this is the same farmer who ploughed up old meadows and reseeded them with rye grass, and ignorantly filled in the wiggly stream at the bottom of the valley bordered by trees so the two fields either side could be linked. And then who knows, were they surprised when it flooded and many of the trees drowned? Out came the digger to scoop it out, leaving piles of earth by the side, gradually getting colonised with nettle and thistle. It made me weep. A whole ecosystem destroyed in one season, its beauty and purpose having taken hundreds of years to form. But we should take responsibility ourselves too – this is an industrial scale dairy farm – the supermarkets often pay for milk below what it actually costs to produce and this is driven by consumer demand for cheap food. Is it any wonder the farmer feels the need to maximise production from every square inch of land?
As Oliver Rackham says in his book The History of the Countryside
“(the rural landscape)…has been made both by the natural world and by human activities, interacting with each other over many centuries.”
In it he makes both a passionate plea and a reasoned argument for the conservation of the historic landscape citing that
“no art gallery’s conservation department would think of burning a picture by Constable, however badly decayed, and substituting a picture in the style of Constable by Tom Keating. Yet this kind of pastiche is daily perpetrated in the guise of ‘conservation’of the landscape”
The analogy may be a bit heavy handed but it perhaps it’s needed to dissuade people from the view that
“the rural landscape, no less than Trafalga Square, is merely the result of human design and ambition…in popular belief this view is simplified into the ‘Enclosure-Act Myth’, the notion that the countryside is not merely an artefact but a very recent one.”
I press on higher into the woods leaving the river behind. There is a gorse still in flower on the steep bank, or maybe it’s come into flower, confused by the sudden sun. It provides a late feeding station for a plump tawny bee which buzzes from bloom to bloom. If it weren’t so cold it might be summer. Intense red holly berries sparkle amongst the yellowing foliage of field maple and ash. There is a gentle rain of leaves.
I arrive at the site of the old quarries. A sign tells me to go no further as there is danger here. All old quarries say this, sometimes it is true and sometimes it isn’t, the sign is there to remind you that whatever you do it’s your own responsibility. This one does feel particularly spooky and the vertiginous cliff of overhanging slate over the cave entrance doesn’t look that stable so I keep my distance. In the green gloom of overhanging trees, the sunlight partially obscured by the canopy, it makes you think of gremlins and night creatures, witches and hobbits. Halloween would definitely not be the right night to visit here, you could seriously scare yourself.
I peer through the trees to a second quarry which has now filled with water, a green pond standing in a circle of trees, ropes of ivy cascading in jungle like fashion from the branches.
I hear a crack of a branch somewhere to the south and human voices. It makes me jump a little and reminds me that I am in fact trespassing so I begin to make my way home. On the way back I see the spreading stag headed oak, its branches crying out to be climbed, though for me those days are long gone.
On the bridlepath I find a dead mole. It is not often that you get to see these underground creatures so I pause for quite a while looking at its shape and wondering how it came to be to be here. Also on the ground is next years oak trees.
I have warmed up after the uphill climb and pop in to see the cows. Belita is lying down in the sun looking content.
Oct 20
Oh god, I think I may have missed the wordpress deadline for posts on A Splash of Colour, but’s that’s probably because I was meandering about in the world of grey, where you don’t have any strong opinions and it’s all give and take and two sided. Then it’s suddenly the end of the week! Never mind, I offer it up anyway. Please don’t get depressed.
Grey. You might not like it but it’s everywhere. It’s the median of life, neither absence of light, nor full of light. It is hovering all around, in every shadow, touching each surface, making objects solid and deep.
It’s a symbol of authority and conservatism. Suits and ties.
It is often the muted backdrop to this temperate place, the sky washed through with a hundred shades, a comprehensive index of neutral.
It is the colour of aggregates and cement, we build with those. It is grim and tough like granite and cool and smooth like slate. It is the bloom on the wriggles of tin and the protective coating on iron. It is as heavy as lead.
It is mistily ambiguous, made of only of water and air.
And flaky and flyaway.
image by thepoormouth.blogspot.co.uk
But it is solid and dependable.
It is known as sombre, cheerless.
But can be practical and warm, soft and cosy. It doesn’t show the dirt
It is the cover of a favourite book
And has a certain elegance
And lest we forget…
Oct 14
Last week I was in Spain, not specifically on a cow hunt you understand…however…
Cow Alert
Cow Sign Salamanca
Today the sky is a sweeping wash of high cirrus clouds. It is bright and there is a slight breeze. I make sandwiches for the journey and take my coffee to the clay tiled terrace to take in the view. Goat bells jangle softly in the distance and a chorus of dogs are barking down the hillside. I can hear a rumble which may belong to heavy machinery behind the chatter and song of the birds. This house stands on hills and slopes above a wide plain. The Sierra de Gredos mountains are behind, hovering above in deep granite folds.
The plain stretches for 50km until it reaches a parallel set of mountains, now hazy and gray. It is the end of a baking hot summer and the land looks parched and dry. The reservoir, which sits in the middle of the plain, is barely more than a puddle, its exposed sandy banks telling the history of its former level.
As I walk through the meadow, the bleached stalks of the grasses splinter and crack underfoot as crickets and grasshoppers scatter. A few days ago there was a couple of days of rain. I look closer, and beneath the parched and brittle surface a new bloom of tiny green seedlings cloaks the ochre earth.
A stony track leads us into the hills and even though it is late afternoon the sun is fierce and hot on our necks and shoulders. The heat releases the sticky perfume from the swathes of Cistus which clothe the hillsides and the air is full of it, sweet and aromatic. I have been told that in May it looks like snow because of the white flowers. I imagine that scene, the papery flowers unfolding day after day, until just like snow, they melt and disappear. In amongst the Cistus are squat lavenders, blue gray leaves needle thin and the skeletal remains of their purple winged flowers standing proud above.
Around here has been gradually colonised by people, pantiled roofs peeping out from between the scrub of Broom and Oak. Mixed orchards of figs, cherries, pear and pomegranate stand alongside vines and olive groves. Yesterday a neighbour came with her brother to harvest the grapes to make the wine and gave us two bursting bags of their own dried figs which they do by turning regularly in the hot summer sun.
On our way back we stop by to say hello to the cows. I wonder if those bells bother them.
Sep 29
Hello, well, some of you know that we’re buying a half share in a bull, Herald (if not, you can read about it here if you’d like). The other day I went to visit him in person for the first time with fellow bull purchasing friend T. Before we commit 100% he has to have blood tests for both TB and BVD (Bovine Virus Diarrhea) – it sounds horrible and best to test…a Hereford farmer in Wiltshire alerted us to this particular bovine problem. Which made me think that maybe we should have had ours tested too. Must get that fencing sorted…
The farm Herald is currently lodging at is on the hills above the Camel Estuary.
We approached him in the field, accompanied by the farmer and I took some pictures…
Herald, note table like back
He was pretty unconcerned by our presence until T went a little too close and he tossed his head in an irritated way. We backed off and he continued with his munching.
I’m thinking how to convert my trepidation into respect, which is how the farmer describes their attitude towards him and implies some sort of control over your gut feelings. Hmm.
Herald was originally halter trained though he hasn’t been handled in this way for two years. His owner and the farmer think he’ll remember no problem. T has volunteered to be the leader in this enterprise – erm, shall we say there wasn’t a queue…
T’s friend J the rope man http://www.stairropes.com. has made him a halter from rope, modelled here by a door
Rather than think too much about the Herald situation, I concentrate on looking at the sky and the clouds…
And the flowers…
PS thinking cowgirl is going offranch for about a week …so hasta luego for now (as they might say in a spaghetti western)
Dahlias by special request
Sep 9
This morning a trio of goldfinches are clinging to the stems of the Knapweed, using them as a support to get to the real prize, the flowers of a yellow Hawksbit, just going over. I sit by the window watch them through the binoculars for a bit, transfixed by the efficient processing laboratory of their beaks, rolling and chafing the fluffy seed until they get to the kernel while discarding the rest.
I step outside into the sun, the air is humming with the vibration of a million tiny wings. It is scorchingly intense in this south facing mini world of the front yard, a scree slope of slate shale and old concrete with a smattering of soil. Heaven for invertebrates. A cloud of hoverflies, bees and butterflies rise up as I push my way through the yellow Scabious to get a closer look at a grasshopper. I feel an intense joy at seeing all this life.
It reminds me of a cycling holiday to Poland in the late1990’s (not the cycling bit) when we crossed over the border into the Czech Republic. After we got a stamp in our passports we took our picnic of bread, sausage and apples into one of the many meadows which clothed the hills there. We were totally overwhelmed. The air was literally alive with insects, thousands and thousands of them crawling, buzzing and humming. It wasn’t so great for the picnic – sitting on the ground was really uncomfortable – within seconds insects were crawling all over us. Eating too was difficult as most of the time was spent batting them away as they whizzed and crashed around our heads. We abandoned the meadow pretty quickly and got back on our bikes. 
But it was amazing to think that this is probably what most of Europe was like before the advent of intensive farming. So we wonder where did all the birds go? I was talking to L about this and we both wondered whether Environmental Stewardship money is wasted on the likes of us and might be put to better use encouraging the ‘green desert’ farmers to preserve/create/maintain good habitats alongside food production. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.
The rest of the day I spend ‘desperate mowing’. Despite the clear blue brightness of the sky, rain will come again soon. I pull the cord and she rumbles into life.
thinkingcowgirl 