Frell
Hellhounds and I had a run in with a game warden today. Sigh. This is actually kind of a rant. The public footpath system is a wonderful thing, but it’s less wonderful when it doesn’t work. In theory farmers are not allowed to put dangerous animals in fields that footpaths cross; in practise it happens all the time, because how do you define a dangerous animal? I won’t take my hellhounds in a field with cattle, because cattle are too frelling big, and they can get pretty excitable about the presence of wolves, even small, on lead, human-accompanied wolves. I think it should be frankly illegal to put uncastrated male critters in fields crossed by public footpaths, but while I’ve never seen a ram to know it was a ram, I’ve seen bulls more than once. It should also be illegal to put cows with calves in footpath fields—sheep are not merely smaller, I’ve never been charged by sheep, even sheep with lambs at side: the worst they do is close in behind you and escort you off the premises, and mostly they stand and stamp (and pee). I’ve had some pretty nasty experiences with cows. And I’ve told you about the day that a footpath field was full of positively mental cows, who were scary even from the (illegal) far side of the fence, the mystery of which was solved when hellhounds and I passed the paddock where all their in-the-process-of-being-weaned-and-nobody-was-having-a-good-time calves were penned up.
There are two fields in one of the hellhounds’ and my favourite areas that are more often than not polluted with cattle. I’ve gotten so much in the habit of walking down the illegal side of the hedgerow—which then enables us to stay out of the smaller and more dangerous cattle field—that I don’t even think about it any more. Hellhounds are on lead; we stay on the vehicle track. We do not trample crops and we do not chase pheasants.*
Imagine my unpleasant surprise when, back on legal ground again, a white van I’ve actually seen around quite a few times, which is one of the reasons I thought the wrong side of the hedgerow was no big deal, pulled up beside me and an obvious game warden started ticking me off. Okay, he’s in his legal rights—although telling me that it’s dangerous for members of the public to be walking two feet from the marked footpath on the wrong side of the hedgerow is pretty frelling funny: this is the estate where hellhounds and I came out of a little wood one day on the legal footpath and discovered a frelling shooting line stretched right over the footpath as far as the eye could see from field’s end to field’s end: imagine coming around a tree and finding about twelve people with shotguns looking at you—and he was also obviously trying to be polite although he wasn’t succeeding too well. I did say that I was on the wrong side of the hedgerow because of the cattle, and while he didn’t accept that as an excuse, I thought he calmed down a little. Also, if he’s been watching us he knows we don’t chase pheasants and we don’t trample crops.
But the fact remains that hellhounds and I are frelled. I’m by nature pretty law-abiding: I don’t like the strain of behaving illegally, and I’m too old to find it exciting. We do use a few illegal trails because I know the locals. I’ve set off across the wrong piece of countryside more often from misreading the map than from cussedness . . . and there are a few hedgerows I go down the wrong side of to stay out of cattle fields. By being denied this one, we can’t use that walk any more; there’s no other way around. And that particular field had a bull in it for months, although at the moment it contains frisky young beef cattle who spook and run around at us even with a fence between. Elderly dairy cattle with udders so big they can barely walk anyway I might risk. Not these jokers. ARRGH.
I may actually write to our local Ramblers representative—I joined the Ramblers** when we moved into town, thinking I might go walking with them some day, learn some routes I won’t learn otherwise—Peter was our cross-country map reader, and I’m pretty hopeless on my own. This probably isn’t going to happen; I don’t feel like controlling hellhounds in a mob or walking at mob pace. But I continue to belong because the Ramblers take walking rights seriously . . . and I am tired of not being able to use public footpaths because of barbed wire, impassable stiles, chest-high nettles, electric fencing, and so on—including dangerous animals in footpath fields—also including people simply ripping down the footpath markers and putting up signs saying PRIVATE instead.
I have a great idea about where to put some of that money we’re wasting on bailing out banks. We can have a Footpath Fencing endowment. Not every footpath, but the majority of them, at least around here, run down the sides of fields. Our new fencing endowment will give farmers grants to fence in the footpath. And then they can keep anything they like in the field. Cattle. Bulls. Komodo dragons.***
Meanwhile, we’ve lost one of our favourite walks. Ratbags. Frell.
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* Although the not chasing of pheasants does occasionally require the exercise of bell-ringing muscles and yells of NO! —And before anyone tells me this is enough to dis-endear hellhounds to any local game wardens, well, no, not necessarily. Two of the local game wardens encourage us to use the trails in their areas because we help keep the pheasants where the game wardens put ’em.
The shooting thing is a whole other discussion: the short form, which I’ve written here before, is that I don’t have a big problem with critters raised for food, if they’re given a decent life and a clean death and are eaten. But hunting, like everything else done by humans, is open to abuse. . . . Which I am not going to get into, at least not tonight: and my point of view is still that of a middle aged transplanted American who earns her living sitting at a desk.
** http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
*** A special department for extra-heavy fencing will be provided.
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