Comments on: all things bright and beautiful…

By: LittleFfarm Dairy

LittleFfarm Dairy — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:37:58 +0000

Hi Paula -

sorry, this is a bit “off topic” - as you know, I love your Blog, especially as we seem to share one another’s aches & pains! So hope you don’t mind & will join in, have tagged you for a meme after being tagged by Fiona @ Cottage Smallholder (see my April 7th post titled ‘Tagging Along’).

Cheers aye,

Jo + LittleFfarm Dairy menagerie.

P.S. Already on Phase Two Kidding - but STILL waiting for that last bloomin’ ewe to lamb….!!

By: elizabethm

elizabethm — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:09:03 +0000

Hmm, this is fascinating. I am torn between an intrinsic sympathy with the make do and mend approach and an aversion to plastic caught on fences blowing in the wind.
You sound to have got it right.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:17:53 +0000

It’s the less intensively managed corners of this over-populated island that act as a pressure valve. Whether that ‘corner’ is an extra metre of buffer at the edge of a field, or a saltmarsh or thousands of hectares of upland heath - it all makes a difference.
No part of this country hasn’t been shaped by man - there is no true wilderness left - but the ‘wilder’ parts no matter how small make the difference…the diversity.
The question is how to keep the countryside viable and working and not end up with a risk-assessed planning-approved rural theme park? Answers on a postcard.

By: colouritgreen

colouritgreen — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:45:41 +0000

it’s funny how we romanticise old rubbish and hate new rubbish. Today I thought I saw a cigarette butt in the field , I was horrified.. we dont smoke, yet here is someones rubbish thrown down!. when I went to pick it up, it turned out to be yet another bit of clay tobacco pipe. I love these bits.. we are finding lots and I collect them up with glee. but.. its the same thing really.. just an older cigarette butt.
Of course these older things connect us with the past. but the old bits of farm machinery we find the in the hedge are just that.. machinery… yesterdays rubbish. Perhaps we should continue the tradition and just throw are modern day stuff down too? no.. I don’t think so.

We were lucky enough to inherite old Devon banks when we moved here. The perimeter ones have been kept a bit in order by the neigbours.. but the ones inside have been neglected so badly.. the hedge is a row of trees.. the soil trampled away by the horse… Fencing has been part of the recovery. keep the animals off.. then lay the hedge again.. and earth up..
I’m so used to seeing baler twine in the hedge that it looks normal to me. But the hedges that are just cut by machine seem sad…

By: eyegillian

eyegillian — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:56:47 +0000

I find these two posts quite eye-opening, not only about the rural-urban split but about the sense of history and continuity in England. I have lived in Canada all my life, most of the time in urban settings, and — despite the fact that we probably have more wildlands that anywhere else in the world (by area and per capita) — there is a lot of tension here between preservationists and modernists, in both city and country.

The old Victorian neighbourhoods are being gentrified and therefore, according to some, the city is losing its character. The boreal forests are being logged, the Canadian shield is being mined and developed into million-dollar cottage lots, and tourists visiting the east coast are put out if they can’t find any “real” (translate: old, wooden, falling apart) lobster pots where modern aluminum versions are now used by the “real” fishing folk.

Yet the wild creatures who are increasingly moving into our urban spaces to join the raccoons and squirrels — deer, ‘possums, skunks, foxes, and, in some places, coyotes or polar bears — make the average homeowner panic and call out the animal control officers. It’s hard to see how all this will balance out, how we can enjoy the wildness without destroying it. I guess I’m hoping that, if we try a little harder to subdue our “subdue and dominate” impulses, nature will find a way.

By: Mopsa

Mopsa — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:03:56 +0000

Bloomin’ brilliant blogging Paula – this has made us really think. And I apologise for the lengthy stream of disconnected consciousness that follows!
True wilderness – yes, of course we must keep it wild before it’s too late and we lose it forever. Being truly wild means that people should not be encouraged (or indeed be actively discouraged) from even visiting a place, let alone leaving their imprint.
By definition, though, farms aren’t wild places; I’d like to think, like you, that there is a welcome place for wildness on all farms – copses, corners, banks, difficult to reach bits that are kept difficult to reach, unimproved meadows, river banks, woodland, rough patches, squashy bits, you name it.
Of course, every fence was new once upon a time, so the harder than iron oak post with draped wire would have been taut and upright and probably quite shiny, once. Sadly, affording lovely old cleft oak posts is something few can afford when it comes to replacement. I’ve always yearned for the cleft oak fences around the National Trust’s Charlecote Park, but only the Trust (and barely they) can continue that beautiful tradition. I agree completely that tanalised timber has absolutely no romance about it, but in time it stops slashing the landscape and does weather to a more acceptable grey, with hedges spilling through them. And of course it does keep some areas wilder, ensuring they aren’t trampled indiscriminately by livestock and humans. I know this isn’t all about fencing, but when I see the damage that the livestock do to ancient banks if they are not maintained, and in many cases fenced, I want to weep.
I have no connection at all with intensive farming – it‘s manufacturing and not something I have any sympathy for, notwithstanding the fools that shout that we must have £1.99 chickens. We need to learn the lessons of the past – no grubbing up of hedges, stop improving pasture (I hate it that it’s called improved when in fact it’s the very opposite), leave the sprays alone etc.
If I was farming in the Yorkshire Dales I would want to keep my beautiful dry stone walls in good nick, and preserve the beauty of the past with new walls. As I’m here, I want to preserve Devon hedgebanks (and sadly have yet to discover how this can be done effectively without the addition of fencing – wish I could – the sheep can climb a vertical with ease!
I suspect the make do and mend mentality is still found in small farming – you patch what is patchable and only use new where things have gone beyond repair, because it’s not economic to do otherwise, or sensible. I’m not sure how the aesthetics in this play for many, although they will for some.
I think it’s really funny/odd that the most regular shaped field on the farm has the historic name of Pretty Field – I find the wonderfully irregular boundaries far prettier. And I like the hedges at least 6 months (6 years?) after they’ve been trimmed, not when they are short back and sides.
For me, the grass growing down the middle of the lane is very important, and when a vehicle with different wheel patterns, or the Council weedkillers start to erode it, I am upset; I do not want to see the tarmac in preference. I enjoy an old plough in a hedge for its charm and the fact that it relates directly to the past. But still, I hate it when I spot a lump of corrugated plastic, or a mess of baler twine hanging in a hedge or on a verge; to me it’s just rubbish that should be disposed of, and something that scars the landscape.
The rusty tin roof that was once shiny and new, is fine and mellow until it is so peppered with holes that it ruins the hay harvest stored underneath.

By: Liz Jamieson

Liz Jamieson — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:48:04 +0000

I found this link to an old Robert Elms article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2001/apr/28/weekend7.weekend2 and another to a video of him on a completely unrelated subject. I really like him!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/video/2007/sep/20/robert.elms

And this article when read as a whole contains many truths. The cities we know are diverse - it is always being said. The countryside could benefit, as could all its inhabitants, present and future, with the diversity of thought and practice that his article suggests is missing.

It is clear that Robert Elms does not want to live in the countryside. In the article I refer to, he says he tried it, but found it untenable. In many ways I do too - but I refuse to be told implicitly or explicitly that I don’t belong in any place I choose. I refuse to give in to the messages subliminally, etched here and there, the ones that say ‘go home’. You see, I could care a toss that Robert Elms doesn’t want to live in the countryside. I care deeply that he (and many others), have felt this way. I understand what drove him to say that and to put it in print is IMHO, courageous.

He also makes it clear that he supports farmers who treat animals with respect and love and gives some anecdotal evidence for others in the cities feeling the same way.

I am not willing to speak up for the rusty tin roof. I don’t need to because they abound. There are enough people who admire them or don’t prioritise them, or don’t have enough spare money to change them that I am convinced they as a species will survive.

By: Jane

Jane — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:20:06 +0000

The answer is “no”. You aren’t the only one. I agree wholeheartedly with your feelings. Luckily a lot of the farmers around me still “patch up and make do” instead of sticking in a new fence or gate and loosing the character of the land.

While reading your post I was reminded of a book that I have just read by Robert Macfarlane called The Wild Places. In it he sets out to try and find a truly wild place in England. As the book progresses his perception of “wild” changes. Instead of only thinking of the remote Scottish islands or highest Welsh mountains, he starts to realise that “wild places” can be all around us. Inside a big ancient hedge - 20ft across and full of noises and animal paths, the “holloways”, ancient deep tracks through the countryside of Dorset, Devon and beyond. Untouched for years, with there own special atmosphere.

Much of the countryside has been “tamed” as you say, but every now and then you find a special place that still has that “magic”. That wildness that we all crave. If only there could be more.