The thirty-strong goldfinch charm launches from the snowy pom-poms of the creeping thistle seedheads, casting yet more glistening down into a breeze already thick with it. The charm chatters as it circles and silences as it settles back onto the bending plants. It is good to see such abundance. And it is good to stop … Continue reading Bride Stones →

Haven | My Upper Calder Valley Farm Map is an ongoing project to track the loss of small farms in my patch of the Pennines. It maps the farms that have vanished or been abandoned to the elements (85 of the 552 total); those that have become dwellings only (409); and those relatively few (58) that … Continue reading Field Studies #11 →

We brought along a best friend of my son's on one of our walks over the summer. It made for a very different experience for the both of us. For him, the walk was essentially turned into a mobile version of the hours of play that they usually spend on our local green. For myself, … Continue reading Nest →

Hoots of yaffling laughter are funnelled to us down the old green lane’s dark tunnel of holly. My young son and I stop, look at each other and smile. It is a familiar sound, and we know that if we quietly creep to the light at the end of lane, to the five bar gate … Continue reading Light at the End of the Old Green Lane →

In the hushed air the pulse of the raven's wing beats sounds like a rush of blood in the ears. We watch its black breast rent the white sky as it passes overhead, but when we turn at the cronk of its mate following on behind, we must look down, the sheen of its back … Continue reading With Miles Behind Us →

Suffolk | The sixth of our annual weeks in the wholly different landscape of the East Anglian coast. The grass of Southwold's spacious commons are brown, but in as stark a symbol of the need for us to re-think our relationship with 'weeds' as I can think of, are flecked with the resilient green of … Continue reading Field Studies #10 →

Meadow | What a delight to spend more time at High Hirst Woodmeadow at their meadows activity day, and especially to learn more from grassland ecologist Steve Hindle. I was sorry to not be able to fit in seeing Francesca's exhibition of haymaking tools and texts at the Birchcliffe Centre, but was pleased to be … Continue reading Field Studies #09 →

Blackcurrants | Despite the hammering it took from last week's buck and boys, the blackcurrant harvest was a bumper one. Being our son's favourite jam, this was important. My wife declared, though, that it was in desperate need of a prune. So too is the St John's wort (yellow flowers at the left of the … Continue reading Field Studies #08 →

Wensleydale | I am reading Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley's 1936 book Wensleydale, a delightful and pioneering combination of guide, history and wistful descriptions of fleeting moments in the life of the valley. Wensleydale is a special place for me; my dad took me camping at Hawes when I was 11, introducing me to the … Continue reading Field Studies #07 →

Is the landscape our ancestors handed down to us fit for a climate-changed future? Can we preserve the inheritance from our predecessors of a traditional farmed environment while meeting the momentous challenges ahead? Or to do well by our descendants must our familiar countryside be radically transformed to lock up carbon and restore wildlife to … Continue reading Past and Future Landscape Stories →