Scout Scar Escarpment At this season the Scout Scar escarpment looks stunning. The limestone flora began to show several weeks ago and now the flowers are fresh and abundant. The cliff face is rich with hoary rock rose, the pale yellow flowers opening to the bright sun. There are dense clumps of flowers right on the cliff edge, mingling with tall stems of blue moor grass. Close to the cliff-edge is common rock rose, slightly later to flower and today shot through with sunlight. I found a patch of kidney vetch and there’s horseshoe-vetch too.
Hoary rock rose on the cliff edge
Below the cliff, the pastures about Barrowfield Farm are a swirl of pattern as haylage is made. They’re so busy working I doubt the farmer will realise what a wonderful picture he is creating, seen from up on the escarpment. His Friesian-Holstein cattle lie content in the warm sun whilst the farmer gathers in their winter feed.
Around the farm known as Big Bradleyfield they’re making haylage while the sun shines too. I hope the farmers are getting a fair price for their milk. I support local produce whenever possible. It’s a delight to walk the escarpment looking at flowers and looking down to the pastures below as the haylage crop is being taken.
Look up from the pastures and to the north lie the fells, to the south is Morecambe Bay. Next day dawned fair and bright but up on the escarpment the mood had changed. The haylage was made and agricultural machinery stood idle. Peace and tranquility prevailed. The sharp, fresh-cut contrast of green and gold had blurred and faded, an ephemeral pattern.
By Helsington Church, I met a young woman preparing to take her horse for a ride and we chatted as she made ready I sat on a bench by the toposcope, looking out west across the pastures of the Lyth Valley and toward Whitbarrow. From up here, it was as if a map of agriculture was laid out before me. Through binoculars, I made out green pastures of cattle and of sheep, then a swathe yellow with buttercups, fields striped and patterned, then what must have been water-meadow with random buttercups where cows and sheep fed together. Then I could infer a rising contour and the gold where yesterday haylage was made. A wonderfully English scene. Directly below us, the sky was reflected pure blue in the recently flooded pastures by Park End where the RSPB hope to encourage birds. In a return to the time when this area was wetland, before Enclosure.
Look up from the pastures and to the north lie the fells, to the south is Morecambe Bay. Next day dawned fair and bright but up on the escarpment the mood had changed. The haylage was made and agricultural machinery stood idle. Peace and tranquility prevailed. The sharp, fresh-cut contrast of green and gold had blurred and faded, an ephemeral pattern.
By Helsington Church, I met a young woman preparing to take her horse for a ride and we chatted as she made ready I sat on a bench by the toposcope, looking out west across the pastures of the Lyth Valley and toward Whitbarrow. From up here, it was as if a map of agriculture was laid out before me. Through binoculars, I made out green pastures of cattle and of sheep, then a swathe yellow with buttercups, fields striped and patterned, then what must have been water-meadow with random buttercups where cows and sheep fed together. Then I could infer a rising contour and the gold where yesterday haylage was made. A wonderfully English scene. Directly below us, the sky was reflected pure blue in the recently flooded pastures by Park End where the RSPB hope to encourage birds. In a return to the time when this area was wetland, before Enclosure.
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