Sheep and Rooks

More common rural scenes from Castleroe way for you today.  Nothing terribly exciting - unless you count a field of sheep as exciting, that is.

A farm trying to hide behind a hedge

You see that's what happens when you just stop your car at the side of a wee road and point your camera nowhere in particular.  A nice wee rural scene, complete with sheep things, a farm, a wee bit of a stone wall and even a tree or two.  Lovely!  Oh - and a couple of modern gates - not so lovely.

Point the camera in another direction and you might see this:

Cattle and rooks

The cattle are all munching away there, following the same route.  And there's a couple of rooks for you too, all a-swirling in the air currents.  No leaves on the trees yet - it was only April.  I know they're rooks as they are our most common bird from that family in these parts.  We get hooded crows, but they are very distinctive, what with their grey overcoat and all (as people say nowadays).  Jackdaws are common here too, but quite a bit smaller than rooks.  Magpies again have very distinctive plumage (every time I hear the word plumage I always think of 'Beautiful plumage, though' - as spoken by Michael Palin in the Dead Parrot Sketch, Monty Python).

Nice moody skies in these shots methinks.  Of course readers familiar with this neck of the woods know that that's the sort of sky we have about 11 months of the year.  The other month the clouds are much heavier ;)  Good job B&W film just loves skies like that.  I mean, what if we had loads of empty blue sky in these shots - they'd be right boring, wouldn't they?!

Strange goings-on

One of the things many people say they like about photography is that it changes the way they see things.  It does, I believe, encourage you to look more closely at things - you are always searching for a new angle on a familiar subject, or to actually see what is there rather than simply what you assume is there.

The other week when I was out and about around Castleroe I was driving around with nothing much in mind other than to point the camera at some things and see what comes out of the developing tank.  In this part of the world there are many farmhouses dotted about the countryside.  By some other countries' standards our farms are small affairs, probably 100-150 acres on average.  Mostly cattle are kept for milk or beef, sometimes sheep and I notice the odd lama has crept in here and there - what's that all about, eh?  There are of course also many farms which grow our staple diet - potatoes - and you get the odd field of barley or rape, which add a touch of colour to the countryside.

Here's a shot of a farm that intrigued me.

Two chimneys?

So what's going on here then?  Two large, brick-built chimneys, visible for miles around.  Unfortunately I couldn't get any closer to them - had to snap this from some distance away with the 180mm Nikkor lens.  The farm itself was up a long driveway and I didn't have the courage just to drive up and ask for a closer look.  You just never know what sort of reception you are going to get.  Anyway the point is I wondered what on earth they were used for?  I'm no expert on farming, mind, but chimneys are usually required when there is fire of some sort.  I really have no idea - they just caught my eye as something unusual and therefore interesting, probably quite old and I doubt if they are still in use.  Suggestions welcome below!

It's a dog's life

I've posted a snap or two of the Dog-Hound-Thing before but I'm rather pleased with this effort.  He's  just had his winter coat off and when that happens he's about 6lbs lighter, or so it seems to him.  He bounces around like a young thing again, belying his age...he'll be 10 this year, so he's well into middle age (like us all, eh?!).

I caught him the other day on the front steps, enjoying the sun.  He just couldn't keep his eyes open, even for a photograph.

Picture of relaxation

Those steps are just perfect for dangling those wee paws over.  Quite the handsome mutt, isn't he?

Gates

Symbolic things, gates, aren't they?  I mean, they stop people&animals from coming in, and also from escaping.  We have wooden gates on our driveway and in the evening it is rather nice, I must admit, to be closing them.  I feel like I'm closing off the world from our little abode, which is a degree safer.  Of course that's all in my mind, since I don't lock them and are they easy for anyone to open.  But all the same it always feels good - like a closure to the day.  In the morning one of the first things I do is open them - and it's kind of saying Hello to everyone else again, We are open for business.  Mind you, although it doesn't feel particularly bad to open them I can't say it gives the same pleasure as when I close them at night.  Funny that, isn't it?

I have a bit of a thing for old gates.  Modern gates you see in the country nowadays tend to be strictly functional - galvanised, plain, built in a factory to a cost.  Old farm gates were things of beauty, all ironwork and sometimes with fancy little turns - mostly made by skilled craftspeople.  I have my eye on quite a few around here that need capturing - strictly on film, of course!  The old ones are probably not much longer for this world (in their present form, anyway) - most are rusty, neglected and in the process of being reclaimed by Mother Nature.

These are the gates from the run-down cottages of the last few posts.  In spite of the fact that the owner has put a modern chain around them (albeit nicely camouflaged in B&W) you can still get a feeling for their former glory.  Quite lovely, methinks, even in their current state of decline.

Nice!

It'll be a shame when one day some Big Lig comes by in his yellow digger and tummels the whole caboosh, gates and all.  But at least they will live on in this blog - for a while, anyway!

More ruins

More from the run-down cottage and outbuildings you saw yesterday.  Always a good hunting-ground for snaps, old places are.  Unfortunately the owner had put a big chain around the gates, so there was no getting up close and dirty, so to speak.  But that's probably a good thing - I think I'd be a bit of a liability poking around a place like this.

Nature taking over

Isn't it amazing how quickly nature takes over?  No matter how much work humans put in to making things look permanent it doesn't take long for decay to set in.  I'm sure that when this little house was occupied it was well cared for and probably had a nice wee garden out front.  Now I like a walk round a garden as much as the next person, but I just can't bring myself to get too carried away with the whole gardening thing.  Leave the best tended garden alone for a month or two and it will look very different.  I like gardens to be low-maintenance and prefer a wild look about them.  It's more natural (in my eyes) than a garden which has been fussed over and is full of weird and wonderful colours which aren't found in the local countryside.  But that's just me - give me Cow Parsley over a Carthusian Pink anyday.

Lovely stonework

I like the walls in this old building.  Not much sign of cement, the stones are just placed on top of each other.  And look how thick the walls are.  The house I grew up in (and where Mother still lives) has similar walls.  Inside they are plastered and outside is rendered and dashed, so it all looks fine, but completely impossible to drill a hole into when hanging a heavy picture or mirror.  The house has stood for over 100 years, so the old stone walls have held up well - no mean feat given the winter storms we have in these parts.

Reflections

Normally a title like 'Reflections' would have me off on my hobby horse, writing about life in days gone by, and the like.  But I'm keeping it vanilla today.

There's always a heated debate on the FB groups any time someone mentions image manipulation.  Of course these days with Photoshop it is very easy to manipulate an image, as we well know.  Some people are firmly of the view that the photograph should represent 'what was there, then'.  Others are more relaxed and say once the image is acquired in the camera, anything goes.  To be honest I find all those discussions a bit boring.  If someone wants to change an image in a particular way, then let them.  I don't see the point in trying to make some sort of 'rule' that restricts creativity.

So here's a photograph for you, snapped on my jaunt around the back roads of Castleroe the other day.  Actually, two photographs for you, to be precise.  A bit like in the episode with Father Ted and Chris the sheep, one photograph is flipped horizontally.  (As a former mathematician I am appalled at what I have just written - what I meant to write was that one photograph has undergone a reflection about the left hand edge).  Whatever - you get my drift.

This way?

Or this way

The question is, does the photograph work better one way or the other?   The top photograph is the 'correct' way - i.e., it shows a representation of the actual scene.  The eye is led into the photograph from right to left.  But naturally we (well, in this part of the world anyway) read from left to right, so perhaps the second photograph works better.  

Better photographers than me have flipped the orientation of photographs to improve the final image.  In this example above I do prefer the second image. What do you think?

Sheep

Today's posts are from up Castleroe way.  If I had done my homework properly I would now embark on a little history of Castleroe before showing you some snappy snaps.  But I haven't done any homework recently.  I do have a list of excuses as long as your arm, mind you - the biggest one being that my eyes have been letting me down recently.  I have inflammation of the iris, or iritis, if you want the technical term.  Unfortunately this is not uncommon in people with ankylosing spondylitis.  I have been pretty lucky so far in that I didn't have iritis once in over 35 years of having AS.  Then last November it decided to pay me a visit.  And again now.  And perhaps in both eyes.  So I'm limiting the amount of time I spend in front of a computer while things ease.  I know you understand, being the sentient beings that you are...

So - quickly then! - here are a couple of images for your amusement.  Of sheep, no less.  In fields.  In Castleroe.  Enjoy...

Lovely power lines, eh?

I wonder if living under those power lines means the lamb is half-cooked when it gets to the abattoir?   Sorry - was that comment in bad taste?  D'oh!  There I go again...  Blame the steroid eye drops - 6 times a day!

Lovely undulations in the fields in these parts