Sunday 30 January 2011

Scenes From Rural Life


How many feet attached to how many legs
shall I use for my shopping trip today?
Two legs good, three legs even better ?





Hi sheep!
What do you think?
Can you give me some advice?
I suppose having four legs makes the question irrelevant for you?
Baaa!




Protect your lambs against cold and predators.

Young broom or good pasture thy ewes do require
Warm barn and in safety their lambs do desire.
Look often well to them, for foxes and dogs
For pits and for brambles, for vermin and hogs.

Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 1573.







Let's buy some eggs first. 
Fresh eggs, laid by genuinely free-rage hens wandering about in the farmyard.
Cow pat and straw still attached.

Money in the bag and on we go.






All week the shoot has been busy in the hills and fields around Valley's End.
The season is about to come to an end, so perhaps
we'll bag a brace or two for the freezer.

There's never any need for a stalking horse, behind whose shoulders the gun
must shelter. Pheasants round here are bred in enclosures, well-fed and fat, and
released for the shoot.
They are almost tame, too lazy to fly up until the beaters stumble over them.

Not much sport in that.






The blackbird in my garden is better off.
Seeds and nuts, fat and apples, supplied on demand, and no guns allowed.

It won't be long before the big males like this one, 
start chasing younger males and females 
to expel the males and impress the females. 

Napoleon has started already.





Laundry service?
Unlikely.




Or Taxi Service?
Quite likely eventually.



In the country, everything is mended and re-used.



36 comments:

  1. Wonderful photos and a wonderful glimpse and view into rural life, a pleasure to read as always :o)

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  2. What great photos and clever bits of text for each. Thank you for this tour of rural life.

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  3. Thank you Friko for this touch of normality. Could you pick up a dozen eggs for me on your next shopping trip?

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  4. Ooops! Flat tire in that last picture. Wouldn't want to be changing that myself... great shots, mostly.

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  5. What a nice vision of where you live. I love the sheep photo...it reminds me of a Japanese woodcut that I fell in love with.

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  6. similar subject matter but different approaches to our posts today. since my sister got rid of the chickens, I had to find a new source for yard eggs.

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  7. Lovely trip through the village Friko.

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  8. I really enjoyed your photos of rural life, Friko. The sheep look so sweet.
    -- K

    Kay, Alberta, Canada
    An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

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  9. Sumptuous and smacking of
    the rural vibe, yes, thanks for
    yet another peak into both
    Valley's End, and your wit.
    Are these pics current?
    I see no ice and no snow.
    What's the dealio?

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  10. ha. thanks for taking us on that trip with you...and i actually counted the shoes in the first pic...baaaa....

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  11. This might be a hackneyed and
    over-baked notion, but for those
    of us in the Colonies, your images
    and prose describing your life there
    in the village, that great stuff about
    gardener, Beeno, your Beloved,
    all of it, would make a terrific
    fireside or coffee/tea table book.
    FRIKO'S WORLD would work for
    a title until something better
    comes along.

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  12. i love the moss - everywhere. steven

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  13. Wonderful photos, one and all but I feel drawn to that first one in particular. Great shot.

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  14. Lovely and charming!
    Fat fluffy sheepies, and a trust-the-customer sales table.
    I love it.

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  15. ach wie gern ... wie gern würde ich dort sein dürfen. hier wird mehr als nur genug weggeworfen, zeit, leben, glück ... danke für diesen ausflug. die neue woche gut dir.

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  16. Friko, I truly loved every word and picture of this post, but have to give my heart to that plump and bright-eyed blackbird. I've even done a quick drawing from your photo to add to my sketchbook. Wishing him luck with his conquests.

    I am so glad to have this entry to your world.

    xo

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  17. I enjoyed seeing life where you live...great photo's...especially the first one of the shoes...your life reminds me of my own here in rural Minnesota...we go to a farm and get our milk and eggs and leave our money in a can...people will do the same with their garden produce...we reuse, mend and barter here too...life is simple and more laid back...thanks for the trip through your neck of the woods!

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  18. I enjoyed your photos so much. Despite the fact that the pheasants are lazy tame birds, they make for a spectacular photo, don't they? Those feathers. When I was a child I lived on a farm and had to learn how to pluck a chicken; guess I would have to call upon this skill if I lived near you.

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  19. Lovely post - great photos and words - refreshing on a gloomy January day.

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  20. I love that Jeep - flat tyre an' all!! I need me one of them...

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  21. Looks like at home but no poor tame pheasants here. And no blue sky today.

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  22. What a nice look into the country life. Quite recognizable. Although you wouldn't find a row of dead pheasants hanging in front of a shop window here. We are too sensitive for that. We like them without head and feathers and not recognizable as once living animals. Nicely wrapped in plastic. And when I say 'we', I mean 'they', because I'm one of those vegetarians ;-)

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  23. What absolutely gorgeous photos. Friko, is there anything you can't do?

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  24. Thank you for your visit on my blog! and I like your kind of post, quite funny!! I love the first picture! :) and I must say i love sheeps too, I worked i a farm when I was young and had to care about sheeps!
    have a nice day!

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  25. Plump pheasant , fluffy bright-eyed sheep and new laid eggs .... that's the side of country living we all fantasise about .
    So it's good to see the decrepit Land Rover and the workmen's boots as well .
    Otherwise I might go mad and go back to country life .... but very briefly !!

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  26. Lovely lovely post....thanks for taking me on your ride, a little bumpy but once I sheared the sheep I had wool enough for sweaters for both of us.
    XO
    WWW

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  27. Love the photos!!! Makes me recall times at my grand parents' farm!!

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  28. Lovely pictures, Friko! I'm especially fond of the sheep and the blackbird.

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  29. Those boots say it all. Easy on, easy off, no laces to mess with. Like my husband's farm clogs, the ones he used to wear into the coop when there were chickens and turkeys. I kind of miss them now.

    Ahh, farm fresh, free range eggs. Even the "farm" eggs at the grocery store don't compare.

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  30. Egg-straw-dinnery post. Thanks. I would have mangled such material.....

    Have a nice day, Boonie

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  31. Your innovative take on the countryside round about is brilliant - the photos show something of your unique take on life. I need to open my eyes and transfer to my camera more of what is there. Thanks for the inspiration. Btw the boots would make a story of their own.

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  32. Ah ... so, you're a rural dweller. Which makes for very nice pictures -- unique too.

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  33. How enjoyable. Please, take us with you again on a trip into town! Loved the sheep and pheasants hanging photo - although your little blackbird is one lucky fellow! (had to laugh at your typo above ... I can just picture "free-rage chickens" ha ha.

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  34. There are a couple of photos here that remind me of my childhood. The old mangle - my gran used hers right into the late 1970's. I would only see pheasants strung up at Christmas at the ironmongers?

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  35. Real Deborah here.

    I was just thinking about your previous posts about your neck of the woods - the local travelogue - and wondering if I should do the same. This is perfect! Wonderful snapshots of a rural life, and pretty darn good photography too.
    I love the bird. It must have been cold out.

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  36. This is all just so very wonderful.

    So different from what I see on my little jaunts.
    Thank you for sharing this . You gift, you know that?

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