In the countryside.

[sister_luck]

The eggs we eat on Sundays come from the tiny healthfood shop down the street. Well, not exactly, they're from a group of organic farms in a valley a short drive away. Incidentally, on quiet days we often hear the kikeriki from a rooster that probably lives in a garden next to the railway lines. And isn't it just great that animals make different sounds in different languages?

Today, we visited that valley for our Sunday walk. It was quite an adventure, a quest even, following signposts across wet meadows (Is that really a path?), crossing a tiny brook and instead of dragons, we encountered cows.

These were small and separated from us by an electric fence (and showed us their backsides when I got the camera out).



After getting through the first soggy pasture and jumping over the the brook, we were faced by a bigger obstacle. Two, to be exact, huge, brown and horned beasts. It was either walking back the way we had come or opening the gate, tiptoeing past the creatures and getting through the second gate. My choice of clothing proved to be less sensible than I had thought - the boyfriend in his beige rainjacket calmly walked through leaving me in my red shirt and orange rainjacket fretting by the gate. To tell the truth, I'd let him walk first to see how the cows would react. They weren't very interested in him, but instead one of them spied me and came to look at the bright colours. Turning my jacket inside out (it has black lining) and zipping up the black fleece jacket made me invisible to them again and I braved the short walk.

This is the inquisitive cow, now totally oblivious of me. Notice the horns!



Here you can see both cows and the gates. The electric fencing is nearly invisible in the picture though.



This is a part of the valley which is home to the five organic farms that provide our healthfood shop with their produce.

Seen through the wiring:



Unobstructed view:



A very old bench:



More pasture with a sky that looked threatening but thankfully didn't deliver a storm.



We'd been walking along a farm track lined by huge horse chestnut trees. As a language aside: a street lined by trees is in German called Allee, so alley is a common false friend.



There was still some storm damage to see, probably caused by Kyrill:



An old barn that is used to store firewood (and yes, if hit by lightning it would go up in flames quite spectacularly):



Details:





What with walking around a valley, there was lots of uphill and downhill, so even a short 90 minute walk left us slightly tired. The tranquility was welcome though.

Comments

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

The old barn is so picturesque. I like how the wood is so grey from the weather. Cute cows! :)

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

The cows weren't so cute when I wanted to walk past. I'm a wuss!

I like old barns and this one was just great - filled with firewood inside, but it had been a house once, as there was still a light switch and cables on a wall inside. Parts of it were reinforced with bricks to hold the whole thing up.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

If I'm not mistaking the whole thing with cow/bulls and red is actually a common myth. The beasts can't see any kind of colour. They're just attracted by the movement. The fact that bulls in bullfight go after the toreador, is not because his cloth is red, but because of the movements he makes with it, and because they've been completely maddened by painful jabs before the fight started.

Nice photographs!

I know what an Allee is, and I know alley, but I've never made the link! I think false friending is something you only do in your own language (although I've been known to make up French words with English ones).

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

The fact that I was slightly nervous and not as calm as the boyfriend might have contributed to the cow's curiousity. They ignored him and even moved away from him! The inquisitive cow was actually quite docile, but I still didn't want to wrestle with it.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I liket he barm and the bench but I kinda fear cows. Roasters 'sound is Cocorico in French!

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

The calves in the first picture were very cute, but the brown ones were a little disconcerting.