Grass fields and droves

click photo to enlarge
When you move to a new part of the country you immediately notice accents and dialect words because, despite the long, dominating presence of TV and radio, and the fact that people move from place to place much more than formerly, regional differences are still evident. And we should be glad that they do because they enrich our experience and provide a link with a past that will, in all probability, eventually disappear.

I've got used to Lincolnshire women I've never met before calling me "ducks" and the way in which words containing the letter "u" are pronounced: computer isn't "compyouter" but "compooter" and the DIY chain isn't B&Q (Bee and Queue) but Bee and Coo! I've also reconciled myself to the fact that in south Lincolnshire the pastures are "grass fields" and that many roads are "droves". However, that field description still puzzles me. I know that over the past century sheep and cattle farming has declined in the county and arable has become dominant, but was the term pasture, a word widely used across Britain, never used in Lincolnshire? Drove rather than road is easier to understand. The roads so named usually lead from settlements into the lower surrounding fens, areas that in the past were poorly drained, used less in winter and wetter weather, and which must have seen much organised "droving" of sheep and cattle to and from the drier land as season and precipitation dictated.

Today's photograph was taken on a recent late afternoon. It shows a grass field that was sown a few years ago to provide fodder for cutting and feeding rather than for the pasturing of animals. The second growth of grass had a beautiful texture and a delicate yellow tinge in the afternoon light, a quality that contrasted with the blue tinged clouds and sky as well as the detail of the distant drove road marked by its collection of trees, farm buildings and a few houses.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11.5mm (31mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old walnut tree

click photo to enlarge
The walnut tree was introduced into Britain by the Romans. Its name comes from the Germanic wallnot and the Old English wahlhnuttu, the first part of the word meaning "foreign" or "from the Roman lands", to distinguish it from the native North European hazel nut.

It slowly spread from Roman towns and villas to medieval monasteries, farmhouses and the gardens of the wealthy. However, the main agents of its dispersal across especially southern England were rooks and squirrels. Walnut trees were valued not only for the nuts that could be stored and eaten through the winter, but also for the hard, strongly figured wood and the oil that could be extracted from it. In his seminal book, "Silva" (1662), John Evelyn advocated planting the walnut tree. The beautiful burred wood was useful for veneers to be applied to cheaper timbers, as well as for gun butts and stocks.

When I lived in the north of England I rarely saw walnut trees. In the Fens of Lincolnshire they appear to be fairly common in gardens and hedgerows, with the occasional specimen tree growing to its full size in more open spaces. Squirrels bury nuts in our garden from some nearby walnut trees and at most times of year we have several sending up shoots and leaves in the most unlikely of places. The example shown in today's photograph is much bigger than most I see, and must be a hundred or more years old. It is slowly falling apart: large limbs have been lost and the crown appears to be dead. Apparently the field in which it stands was pasture until relatively recently, and the tree now struggles on surrounded by wheat, peas, brassicas, potatoes and sundry other vegetable crops, as well as passing tractors and harvesters. I took my photograph in the late afternoon as the sky darkened apocalyptically and a shaft of sunlight illuminated the tree, showing off its ragged shape against the black clouds.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 168mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On