We don't usually talk about it and we write about it even less. Sometimes I think it's because we find it hard to decide which words to use about it. But we certainly see plenty of it.
Choose what word you will, cowpats, or s**t , or manure, or a favourite euphemism of your own, wherever the cows go, there goes it. Just for once let's consider it. The first thing to be said is there's a hell of a lot of it. Next, that produced by cattle is even worse to behold than that dropped by sheep and far worse than that left behind by wild animals like deer. Yes, there's some sort of almost aesthetic appreciation going on here. The droppings of the wild deer on Blacka are small, formed and always the same. They also are usually found off the paths. Sheep faecies is quite similar to that of the deer; it's just that there's so much of it and they are like cattle in the sense that they are not at all particular where they leave it. But cattle are not just larger and fatter, their waste suggests they are in a perpetual state of having dined on something unsuitably rich or have a distressingly weak digestion.
Earlier this year we were lucky that there was no farm grazing on the pasture land for several months. Not only did this allow many wild flowers to occupy the grassy slopes but for once the area was free from livestock faeces. It felt like a place for people, for families with children and, rarely around here, a place removed from the industrialised grazing of our countryside. Now the livestock are back, both sheep and cattle and the dung is everywhere but especially on the paths. Perhaps it's something about domestic livestock that they just do it everywhere. Least tastefully they also seem addicted to lying in it and elegantly walking about with it still sticking to them. Maybe this is a legacy of them being kept enclosed for at least part of their lives. During last winter there were extended areas where the ground was obscured for many yards alongside walls where livestock had gathered to shelter. Only coarse weeds grew there in spring.
So what conclusion? This is a response to the oft repeated comment that "this is what the countryside is like - don't be squeamish." All I've ever said about Blacka is that we need some places free from farming and farm livestock, fences, farm priorities and all that comes with them. I've done my share of mucking out in my farming days and feel no squeamishness. That's not the same as wanting to find it everwhere I walk. Now the plan seems to be to put them back on the moor just at the muddiest season and we know already what that will mean for the paths.
Choose what word you will, cowpats, or s**t , or manure, or a favourite euphemism of your own, wherever the cows go, there goes it. Just for once let's consider it. The first thing to be said is there's a hell of a lot of it. Next, that produced by cattle is even worse to behold than that dropped by sheep and far worse than that left behind by wild animals like deer. Yes, there's some sort of almost aesthetic appreciation going on here. The droppings of the wild deer on Blacka are small, formed and always the same. They also are usually found off the paths. Sheep faecies is quite similar to that of the deer; it's just that there's so much of it and they are like cattle in the sense that they are not at all particular where they leave it. But cattle are not just larger and fatter, their waste suggests they are in a perpetual state of having dined on something unsuitably rich or have a distressingly weak digestion.
Earlier this year we were lucky that there was no farm grazing on the pasture land for several months. Not only did this allow many wild flowers to occupy the grassy slopes but for once the area was free from livestock faeces. It felt like a place for people, for families with children and, rarely around here, a place removed from the industrialised grazing of our countryside. Now the livestock are back, both sheep and cattle and the dung is everywhere but especially on the paths. Perhaps it's something about domestic livestock that they just do it everywhere. Least tastefully they also seem addicted to lying in it and elegantly walking about with it still sticking to them. Maybe this is a legacy of them being kept enclosed for at least part of their lives. During last winter there were extended areas where the ground was obscured for many yards alongside walls where livestock had gathered to shelter. Only coarse weeds grew there in spring.
So what conclusion? This is a response to the oft repeated comment that "this is what the countryside is like - don't be squeamish." All I've ever said about Blacka is that we need some places free from farming and farm livestock, fences, farm priorities and all that comes with them. I've done my share of mucking out in my farming days and feel no squeamishness. That's not the same as wanting to find it everwhere I walk. Now the plan seems to be to put them back on the moor just at the muddiest season and we know already what that will mean for the paths.
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