We have a number of local walks, and sometimes all you need is to stretch your legs and feel the fresh air against your skin. We are lucky to have a regular walk, which can be extended to form a larger circular walk of just under two hours at our leisurely pace taking in the views.
No planning is required, just deciding whether to take water proofs, and how many layers to wear. We don't even need to look for car keys, as the countryside is just around a hundred metres from our front door.
During the winter a walk along lanes and droves is the best option as soils here are clay and not easy to walk over after rain. This walk takes us down on to the levels where the lanes are called droves and these wind their way around fields where during the summer cattle and sheep are let out to graze on the rich grasslands.
If we don't want a walk of over an hour, we just walk along the lane. Keeping a good space we walk to 'Our Tree' and back in just under an hour. We do this walk once or up to three times a week. The Tree is question is getting more raggedy each year. We are lucky however that it is well within a farmer's field, and no hazard to vehicles or other users of the country lane, or it would have been felled like many of the once iconic Ash trees of the Mendips. Already since moving down to Somerset many trees have been lost in just the last five years.
This Ash Tree works as a marker for us, and we can guage our fitness, as we recover from whatever we may have caught, as to how easily we reach this tree, and whether the following walk will be a longer one.
This side of the hedge is a drainage ditch, which this Sunday was full of water, the hedge yet to be trimmed but with the height of the tree it is easy to see into its canopy and see the number of dead or dying limbs. I have no idea of how old this tree is. It is fairly sheltered from northerly winds as there is a ridge of higher ground, crested by small collections of trees and scrub at the crest.
This is not the first tree that we note on our walk, but this week I wanted to show it as the leaves are still on the tree which is the latest I have know Ash to hold their leaves. The dead branches are easily identified too from this distance.
She is an old diseased isolated tree and once maybe have been part of a hedge as one can glimpse the remnants of an old hedge growing down the hill from the top. Her canopy is much reduced since we first selected her as our way marker, Still with her gnarled trunk she is much loved and appreciated.
I wonder if birds may nest in her various hollows each spring. We have seen birds of prey, pigeons, crows, and jackdaws perch but of course not all at the same time.
A little before you get to this tree just up from the road a little is a dead Ash tree, with her skirt of scrub and bramble. Gradually as the bows decay and fall, and the thicket underneath increases, all memory of this tree will be lost. Just how long will it take for 'Our Tree' to reach this stage? If we are around, we shall shall still stop and remember her.
.JPG)
