I Can See for Miles

With apologies to Pete Townsend....

To the East and North of our allotment site has been, for at least as long as Meggie can remember, abandoned farmland, gradually being taken over by hawthorn, birch and brambles, and always threatening to turn into a massive housing estate at the hands of a local developer.

It's been fantastic dog walking country, criss crossed as it is by the paths opened up by trail bikers, and you'll have heard in this blog of any number of circular "loop" walks that use it - the Levee loop, the concrete bridge, the high path, the short-levee. Meggie's a bit old now for the full levee loop, but we still enjoy a charge about down there and only weeks back I took myself off for a rabbit hunt through its thickets (see blog called "Only gone for 15 minutes")

It abounded in wild flowers at the right season - rosebay willow herb (fire weed to our US readers), thistles, bristly ox-tongue and blossom from the brambles and hawthorn (may), blackthorn (sloes) and morello cherries. It ran with rabbits and we could regularly see foxes, nightingales, pheasants, cuckoos and kestrels.

Now suddenly, with the credit crunch clipping the wings of the developer, we hear that it is to be returned to farmland, cleared, ploughed and planted to oilseed rape and wheat. So out there now, all across the "Abbey Fields" (as they are known) big machinery is at work - huge hydraulic tracked diggers, JCB's (back-hoes) with telescopic jibs and grabs, tractors with massive tillers etc, clearing the scrub, piling it into huge pyres and torching them. You can see the boiling brown smoke for miles.

You can see for miles, too ! It is surprising how the hawthorn and bramble rises up to hem you in shrinking your horizon to a few feet. Today, on the high ridge path we could see for miles across the feilds - even a dog with her eyes 8 inches from the deck has a clear view.

We don't know whether to be pleased that the threat of the Housing Estate has gone (for now) or sad for the foxes made homeless, the birds forced to move on, and the end to a goodly crop of blackberries. Farmland is OK, but ecologically and in terms of bio-diversity, a bright yellow field of OSR is almost sterile, and wheat sprayed 3 or 4 times a week might as well be scorched earth.

Ah well, the farmer guy is promising to keeop some paths open and allow we dogs continued access.

As for Megan, our walk today to see the fires and clearances is an hour and a half, which is just about at her limit. She is dawdling like a pro by the time we walk back down hill to the house. She's walked those fields since she was a pup - for nearly 13 years we've had that lovely wild place - almost a nature reserve - to walk in, just minutes from the front door.

Ah... waxing lyrical
Deefski

Toy of the Month

First a nice pic of the stream running through the Abbey Fields. That's me down on the right bank. Dad is standing on the flat concrete bridge to take the pic. It's a walk we do quite often, and in the Summer we nip down a little earth "slip-way" for a wade. It's a good stream for water cress as it's so clean.

The disreputable ball thing in the 2nd pic is current favourite toy. I spend hours chasing it when it's thrown about by Dad, take it to my bed, and get so distracted when it's taken off me that I can't concentrate on supper and Megan steals my food. I think it was once roughly spherical, but it's previous owner has chewed one of its three rings off, so I'm left with an axle bit and 2 rings. It's all stipply, so it's presumably mainly for teeth cleaning.

All the best

Deefer

Dirt Bikes

Not for any reason other than it's pretty, it's got Dad's 2CV in the picture and it's right near where his 2CV crowd are doing up their project car, Mademoiselle d'Armentieres; a picture of Sarre Windmill, in Kent

http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk/mills/sarre.htm

Look at that blue sky. That's how it's been here for the last couple of days - a good thing in some ways. not in others. "Not" when it keeps Dad away playing 2CV's without us, "not" when he disappears up to the allotment without us for hours digging (something about the havoc we create when allowed off the lead to rootle in peoples' compost heaps for mice , rats and hibernating hedgehogs, or trample all over their plots). Allegedly.

Good though when Dad manages to get off work at a sensible hour and there's hours of bright daylight for us to have a sensible walk across the Abbey Fields. The fields are within 5 minutes of our front door and the bone of much contention in the town. Bought off the local farmer(s) at least 13 years ago, by a developper - he has earmarked them for the usual thousand or so dwellings, but the locals have so far fought him off.

So the fields are abandonned arable land, gradually reverting to bramble and birch thickets, but kept nice and walkable by the passing of plenty of "herberts" on dirt bikes. Many locals seem to moan about the bikers, and I guess they can be noisy and just the odd one (usually the younger ones) can be a bit irresponsible with their speed and noise. But we've found the vast majority to be OK, polite and respectful of the fact that other people use the fields for dog walking. So, they get a huge playground to mess about in, we get an ever changing pattern of tracks where the passing of bikes has flattened or kept down the vegetation.

This fight between locals and developpers has dragged on now so long it's given Meg and Haggis superb walking territory, 5 minutes from the house, for all their long lives, and Dad, for one, is hoping it carries on that way fo my whole life and beyond. Saves using the car to get to the "countryside", anyway!

So we say fair play you (responsible) bikers. Long may your knobbly tyres keep our paths walk-able

Deefs

The Grass was as High....

It's a warm sweaty night, so our walk, mercifully, joins the dots from pond to stream to drainage ditch to dyke. At each, we are allowed to scurry down the bank and paddle (or swim, if we lep' into a bit that's deeper than we thought, Haggis), but if we don't fancy that, then we can rush up and down the bank and try to guess what all the excitement's about. As you know, I am on an "impress the humans by staying clean and dry" campaign, so I don't go in, while Meggie and H get quite sordid. Mind you I do join them in the "rolling on your back to dry yourself" action, even though I am dry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The abandoned fields (no longer farmed, but still escaping the developer's bull-dozers) out back of Dad's allotment, are very bright at present, with wild flowers. We have yellows from ragwort and bristly ox-tongue, purples from willow-herbs (rose bay (= fireweed) and "greater"), thistles and teasels, darker purples from tufted vetch, whites from wild carrot, ox-eye daisy and convulvulus, we have clovers (red and white), and we have the dark terracotta of old dock flower spikes, now turned to seed.

It's all chest-high on Dad, so we are pleased (and we might be in a minority here!) that the dirt-bike boys get out there cutting and wearing paths through those fields. If it wasn't for those guys those fields would be denied to us by now. They might be noisy, but they definitely improve access. As long as they are responsible and don't run us over (so far they are, and they don't!) then more power to their elbows!

Have a great weekend

Deefs