Is it farming?

Farms are really starting to look like factories these days, they just get bigger and bigger. Though it's difficult to tell at ground level, this one looks about the size 20 football pitches. Often it's not possible to tell what is inside them, could be chickens, pigs, cows (for milk).

Some of us have a big moral problem with the treatment of animals in this way. The farmers (can they still be called farmers?) know this. Most of these 'factories' are built in out-of-the-way places and are often hidden at ground level by the planting of high hedging. This one, being new, can be seen clearly from the road.

"The Independent has identified dozens of such farms operating across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, pinpointing - for the first time - at least 50 confinement units, and 20 CAFO-style facilities. More are understood to be in the pipeline. The largest units hold over 2,000 cows, in comparison to the average UK herd size of around 125." The Independent

BUY FREE RANGE!

Horses in purdah

Horses can suffer from nasty fly afflictions during the summer and sometimes need to be covered. It makes them look a little weird, as though they were in purdah, but they seem to be able to go about their business as normal.

NO FORNICATION

Adding to my collection of landowners officious signage... It's the first time I have seen a sign that prohibits fornication and the throwing of dogs into lakes!

I think that if it was legal, some landowners would class ramblers alongside rats, crows and wood pigeons as vermin and shoot them on sight. Or, maybe even hunt them like foxes on horseback with hounds.

Normanby le Wold Radar Station. Just added this one as it's nearby and I like the way the lollipop trees mimic the radar tower, a kind of visual pun.

Where buzzards mew

I have a habit of mocking Lincolnshire's landscape. It's a kind of self mockery, loving and not malicious. I concede there are parts of Lincolnshire that are beautiful to walk through, where skylarks sing, buzzards mew and cows moo. Though, it's still a landscape shaped by agriculture and the leisure industry. There is conflict here between the past and the future, between the haves and have nots, between the landowners and the tourists. This landscape is still an industrialised and social landscape.

Walesby beacon

Walesby beacon - Lincoln Cathedral is on the horizon 20 miles away just right of the beacon though, you wont see it at screen resolution.

4 miles of boring

The first four miles of the Viking Way between Woodhall Spa and Horncastle is a straight (it's an abandoned railway line), beautifully manicured footpath through the woods. The first 20 minutes is wonderful echoing bird song and leaves rustling in the breeze. After that it becomes a little boring as you can only see forward and backwards.

Occasionally you come across the inevitable piece of public art. At least this is relevant and well made... and it breaks the boredom.

World's tallest

When it was built in the 1960's the Belmont TV transmitter was the tallest structure of it's kind (cylindrical tube) in the world. You would think that it would spoil the landscape but I kind of like it. If it was erected in the Lake District I would probably think different.

The Lincolnshire Alps

Continuing my random wanderings along the Viking Way into the Lincolnshire Wolds...

Taking pictures in the picturesque landscape of the Lincolnshire Wolds is difficult. The Wolds have a grand beauty of their own. Intensively farmed big fields on gently rolling hills lends itself to a minimalist approach though, this can easily lead to the trap of style over substance.

Lincolnshire Red cattle in open pasture on top of the Wolds. This rare scene is how we imagine cattle should be reared and this is probably some of the happiest prime steak in the country.

Unfortunately, away from the Wolds, factory farms are the norm, where cattle rarely or never see daylight. Don't believe the supermarket marketing imagery of happy animals on packaging and delivery trucks.

At 450 feet above sea level, the village of Fulnetby proudly boasts, on an information sign, of being the second highest village in the Lincolnshire Wolds. The local church offers refreshments to weary travellers. After that climb I'm not surprised ;-)

It's the top of an old lorry used as a shed though, it appears so much more sinister than that!

Barren land

I've been sick the past couple of weeks so, I'm getting back into walking, here's a varied selection images from my local neighbourhood...

Some of the locals are so conservative that they did not approve of the church being used as a polling station (North Carlton).

It's a dry spring, no rain for weeks and none forecast. What passes for soil in this intensively farmed landscape is now suffering moisture deficiency as well as nutrient deficiency. Crops can no longer be grown on this land but for the injection of chemicals. The soil has no life, it is just mineral, no organic matter to retain moisture, no bacteria to break down matter and provide nutrients, no worms and bugs for wildlife.

Even the field edges are made barren by the use of weed killer, to stop nature encroaching.

This is the inside of a car dumped at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Contents included the dashboard and armrest console, the air conditioning unit, various drugs related paraphernalia and a taser!

Platform 1, Southrey

Southrey is a small village at the end of a dead end road, you would hardly know it exists. It once had a railway station and a ferry across the River Witham, it took only three hours to get to London. All that is left left now is a platform and a sign and a smattering of cyclists along the river. The village itself thrives but, like most villages these days, more as dormitory than an entity in its own right.