Drawing in the field by Kate Foster, environmental artist

midwinter

• December 21st, 2011
• Posted in sheep-walks

In the cold, whooper swans arrived on the loch. The sheep also come close to the shore, the animals grazing alongside each other. Today, the swans glided over: forward swan calling, chorus responding.  I was worried about disturbing them, now I am worried they are seeing me off. I get ready to run. Instead, we [ READ MORE ]

on the idea of ‘tree-lines’, encountered on sheepwalks

• January 5th, 2011
• Posted in sheep-walks . tree-lines

sheep and trees held apart, cast as incompatible trees as shelter, human and non-human deadwood,  ‘snags’, woody debris snow modelling lines zones of clear-fell, replanting, first growth – delineated from pasture broadleaves in a valley – snow was so early this year, their leaves blew over the first fall blocks, ranks tree-lines -  a malleable [ READ MORE ]

solstice & eclipse at dawn

• December 21st, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

moonset 08.33 full moon 08.13 moonrise [ READ MORE ]

early winter snow

• December 9th, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

3.30 in the afternoon, 8 December The M8 has been re-opened after more than 24 hours  – and the Welsh Mountain ewes have dug through to grass[ READ MORE ]

on sheep walks

• October 21st, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

  Determining on sheepwalks as a line of enquiry – a malleable idea to frame such ideas: the activity of sheep making walks – others using sheepwalks to walk, and look – gathering and departure – compression, degradation – lines of exit and transformation -  incompleted patterns[ READ MORE ]

autumn ram, lamb and ewe sales

• October 1st, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

a smaller sale than at Kelso earlier in the month, mainly Texels and Suffolk tups I am drawn to the black sheep the season’s work in some way concluded, a finished flock of lambs move on[ READ MORE ]

• September 13th, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

I was told that barbed wire is used more for confining cattle than sheep – and found traces of wandering sheep above a break in the wall[ READ MORE ]

mapping a heft (2)

• August 24th, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

In the news, an item about feeding nine billion of us on ‘beef’ from vats. A flock of blackface grazing with black cattle. Rooks sweeping up and down the valley and swallows winging along the fence line. I read how blackface ewes keep diferent habits in summer, some stick to their winter territory, others move [ READ MORE ]

mapping a heft

• August 19th, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

mapping a heft – Cheviot lambs and ewes by a stell. A bridge of railway sleepers over a burn. A track, marked already on an 1867 map. A route used for droving cattle, maybe sheep too. The ewes have spent winter, and summer, here. The stell a nucleus – the eye of their map? view [ READ MORE ]

eat less, but better

• August 11th, 2010
• Posted in sheep-walks

Glimpse of earthly paradise, with axes of biodiversity and carbon sequestration[ READ MORE ]