Monoliths of the field

words from my notebook 15/3/11


The stones were covered after Roger had tilled the land. The field was flat, both in texture and colour - no white spots beaming from the orangey-brown.

It rained last night; the ground wet this morning, a grey sky held down by mist hovers to the south. The field has changed again.

On my arrival at the field this morning I recognised it again. White spots dotted the orangey-brown - a deeper brown than Sunday - the rain had cleaned the stones.

. . .

I wasn't even sure if the stones were still here after Roger had finished. Had they been pushed down under the surface? I wondered to myself, or scooped up and sent to another place? I knew this couldn't really be true - all the stones gone - and I must say I'm pleased to see that today they are back. But for a time they were invisible.

These flecks of white - quartz, granite - give contrast to the field. They contrast visually - the field looks more interesting with them present - and they contrast the use of the land. They pull the land back to what it was before the plough tore it up - Land - the earth! Rocks, soil, clay, grass, roots, plants, insects - life. I wonder how anything is going to grow here, but Roger's family have been farming this land for nearly seventy years, so it must work. But surely you're an unfortunate seed if you end up under one of these rocks!

. . .

I always place myself and my stuff in the top left hand corner of the field when I arrive, under an oak and a hornbeam (?) I enjoy the walk from the path - tight, enclosed - into the field. I always stop and take it in - the expanse of space - and then head up the field with the hedge to my left and stop again under the trees in the corner.

Sitting in my corner on an upturned bucket my gaze again is drawn to the white stones protruding the brown earth. I have been photographing them this morning. Monoliths of the field is how they appear to me today. Having not seen them since Roger turned the soil they appear now as beacons of power, as the resistance of the earth showing us humans that it is not so easy to have things the way we want them. They could have been sown, broadcasted by a hand mightier than our own.

We'll get what we want from this land I suppose. The stones may change direction, spend time underground, but they will always be here. They are rock-solid after all!

Dough and Crumble

November 2010      -        March 2011

words from my notebook 6/3/11


I see the field in the distance. It looks different. Roger worked it on Friday, how do  I know? I spoke to him then. It's been churned tilled, laid out to dry. The soil needs air; 'dough is no good, it needs to be like crumble.'

. . .

It's freshly dug now. When I last saw it orange and hard, it held my weight like dense ice. Now it's broken, slushy, nothing firm about this terra. But it's the cycle, destruct to construct; you can't make an omelette without...nor brownies for that matter. The earth lies here at present like a tray of brownie off-cuts, crumbled clumps, fresh, delicious.

I still can't imagine growth here yet. It's a mess, turbulent waves of earth. But there will be a calm to this storm, and from its still surface there will be life.

Thoughts about The Field

There was a time

There was a time when this field was not a field;

It was a hill side

There was a time when this hill side was not a hill side;

It was simply earth

There was a time when this earth was not simply earth;

It was molten lava

There was a time

To The Field

'The field lies before me. What is a field?'

John Stewart Collis, The Worm Forgives the Plough

Alongside the Penryn River in Cornwall, UK, The Field lies. Between 5 and 15 metres above the waters level its brown earth shows little life at present, resting, fallow. Almost directly north of here, behind a tall hedge, atop the plateau of a steady hill with the roar of the A39 in the background, another field lies. Similar, rich, brown, clayey soil, this field is resting too. However, come the spring - March leading into April - these fields will both reawaken. Land - the same earth - but put to different uses.

This blog aims to put into words and images the life of the land, these plots of land, and our relationship to the land. Through it I wish to find answers to the question John Collis was asking. It seems a simple question, we all know what a field is, don't we? But I'm not sure we do, really. I'm not sure I do, but I want to find out.

There are many issues surrounding the land: food (GM), access, farming techniques (monocultures), land management, quality of soil, well-being  of live stock, organic and non-organic farming, free range and battery chickens, mega dairies, the list goes on. But what these issues all come down to, what they point toward, is us!

We live now further from the land than ever before. Progress...? Not to my mind. I believe we need to take some steps back, turn ourselves around, refocus our gaze from the city - from its tarmac and concrete - to the land. So to the field I will go and start my own journey back to the land. I hope you will join me and share my discoveries.