Into the pit

Apart from potato farming, the primary local industry seems to be gravel extraction. I pass the gravel trucks lined up on the highway at five-thirty each morning so I suppose the pits don't start work until six. The nearest pit to us is in disuse, there's no extraction going on currently but it could start again depending on the currents in the global gravel markets. In the meantime it's a local recreational facility, people go there to shoot at beer cans, to drive their four wheelers madly and, one imagines, to do other things one cannot do at home. There are trails around the edge of it which would be nice for a ride as, due to the brush, you can't see the pit itself from them.

I wanted to see the pit and set off with Charlie. I think this is barley we're wading through. Anyway, it's long wet grass and sweeps the bug repellent off the legs of people in shorts.



The pit is moon like landscape







it put me in mind of the mesas in the west.





Beyond the pit there's a fire tree plantation. There are many of those locally, the result of a tax credit some time in the past. There are trails leading off in several directions. They'd be best explored by horse I think, a horse would lift the rider's legs clear of the wet and buggy grass.



We could have returned by road but I hadn't brought a leash and Charlie's apt to take a run for Darcy's (a labrador) house, so I let him lead me back the way we had come. Via trees. And via a pond. And via one of those mysterious concrete tower things that dot the landscape and must once have had something to do with farming.
At least, I hope they had to do with farming. Historically where we live was Catholic while the Orangemen lived just five miles to the south, I've only heard of resentment and discrimination but perhaps things did escalate to the point where a Martello tower was the thing to have in the backyard.

Charlie doesn't care, Charlie doesn't like Mennonites but he's no other religous peccadillos.