Walking the Land: Part One

I gave the cow paddocks pedestrian names. And in the sense that most mornings I walk there: pedestrian. I take predictable paths, with the occasional sweep by foot and eye, of such things as troughs, salt blocks, pasture, shelterbelts, temporary electric fences, and – things unforeseen.

I usually start my walk by going down the drive to the roadside, which, when the cows are grazing it, becomes ‘The Driveway Paddock’. Like sheep on a single file path, I seldom deviate from one or other of the vehicle wheel tracks either side of the grass median strip. Glancing to my right I take in the ‘Driveway Top’, then ‘Driveway Bottom’ paddocks, and to my left the ‘Bottom of the Gully’ and the ‘Small Paddock At The Bottom Of The Gully’. Dull, long-winded names march on to the last:

1. Driveway Paddock
2. Driveway Top Paddock
3. Driveway Bottom Paddock
4. Holding Pen
5. Bottom Of The Gully Paddock
6. Small Paddock At The Bottom of the Gully
7. First Roadside Paddock This Side Of Shelterbelt
8. Second Roadside Paddock This Side Of Shelterbelt
9. Roadside Verge
10. Roadside Paddock Other Side Of Shelterbelt
11. Lower Hollow Paddock
12. The Paddock This Side Of Poplars
13. Paddock With The Poplars
14. Paddock With The Oaks
15. Far Boundary Paddock
16. Paddock Below Triangle Of Gums
17. Upper Hollow Paddock
18. Bath Trough Paddock
19. Top Of The Gully Paddock
20. Behind The Studio Paddock
21. Above The Garden Paddock
22. Holding Paddock

I’ve never written them down before. Seeing them ‘all of a kind’ – I feel inspired to change the names. As described, they do bring to my mind the location of a particular paddock and, in the case of ‘Holding Paddock’ and ‘Holding Pen’, their essential functions. But that is readily achieved without being so remorselessly plodding.

As you read this, the names are being freshly minted. I hope you appreciate the honour of being present at their creation:

1. The Winding Road
2. The Birches
3. The Loading Bank
4. The Pen
5. Lake Wobegon
6. The Ford
7. The Flats
8. The Bolthole
9. The Long Acre
10. The Flaxes
11. Soggy Bottom
12. The Run-off
13. The Poplars
14. The Oaks
15. Mountain View
16. The Dry
17. Soggy Hollow
18. The Ribbonwoods
19. Owl Gully
20. The Watershed
21. Garden View
22. The Feed-Out

I’ll be back.

Just been out to move the cows. I rolled the new names off my tongue as I walked:

Down the winding road, past the birches, Lake Wobegon and the loading bank; squelched through the ford and onto the flats before climbing over the gate into the paddock sheltered by flaxes; climbed up to the cows watching me from the ribbonwoods; moved them across the soggy hollow on to the dry; checked the gate into mountain view was securely shut before heading back; walked down to the run-off and across the soggy bottom to the flaxes and retraced my steps back to the house.

A few days ago June planted 40 cm high seedlings on The Ribbonwoods’ side of a shelterbelt. The plantings start at the bath trough at the high, northern end of the paddock, and finish down the slope at the juncture with The Flaxes: young ribbonwoods flanking decades old permanent pasture – it feels like the paddock itself has been given a fresh start.

Indents formed as the cows walked across the top of The Soggy Hollow; give them a few days and they’d damage the pasture: hooves pugging up the ground. Spring had greeted us on the 1st September with 60 mm or so of wet snow. When melted in the rain gauge, and with rainfall added, we’d had 42 mm by the time I moved them across on the eleventh. Leaving The Soggy Hollow for drier times, I let them graze the early spring growth on The Dry. It drains well, with a slope that doesn’t flatten out till halfway down The Run-off paddock below it.

Twenty-two small paddocks give me wriggle room. And their new names resonate. I walked ‘The Winding Road’ this morning – it has some length as a driveway that goes from the roadside to the back door of our house. June brought me a coffee as I was writing that and, homing in on the text, started singing:

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear

Song by The Beatles

Inside and outside – things unforeseen! Predictable paths do disappear; having renamed my paddocks, I’m now inspired to get off my beaten tracks through them and to see them anew.

That’s all from Little Owl Gully for this week. Next Monday, I’ll let you know how early spring pasture growth is coming along.

Thanks for your company. Bye for now.