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    Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open
    Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open
    Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open
    Ebook199 pages2 hours

    Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open

    By Owen Jones and Marcus Woodward

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    About this ebook

    This classic book offers the reader advice and instructions on how to best appreciate nature, the countryside, and walking in the Great Outdoors. It aims to enlighten the reader as to what to look out for and how to identify various things ranging from trees to wildlife and beyond. “Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open” is highly recommended for nature lovers and is perfect for those looking for new ways to appreciate their natural surroundings. Contents include: "Eyes that See”, “The Art of Sitting Down”, “Woodcraft”, “Eyes and no Eyes in the Woods”, “Signs and Tokens”, “The Woodman's Secrets”, “How to Call the Birds and Beasts”, “Some Uses of Hazel and Ash”, “How to Know the Trees”, “Our Friend the Gamekeeper”, “Thoughts on Trespassing”, “Odd Hours of Sport”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherA Thousand Fields
    Release dateJan 31, 2018
    ISBN9781528784276
    Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open
    Author

    Owen Jones

    Author Owen Jones, from Barry, South Wales, came to writing novels relatively recently, although he has been writing all his adult life. He has lived and worked in several countries and travelled in many, many more. He speaks, or has spoken, seven languages fluently and is currently learning Thai, since he lived in Thailand with his Thai wife of ten years. "It has never taken me long to learn a language," he says, "but Thai bears no relationship to any other language I have ever studied before." When asked about his style of writing, he said, "I'm a Celt, and we are Romantic. I believe in reincarnation and lots more besides in that vein. Those beliefs, like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around', Fate and Karma are central to my life, so they are reflected in my work'. His first novel, 'Daddy's Hobby' from the series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya' has become the classic novel on Pattaya bar girls and has been followed by six sequels. However, his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a young teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. After fifteen years of travelling, Owen and his wife are now back in his home town. He sums up his style as: "I write about what I see... or think I see... or dream... and in the end, it's all the same really..."

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      Book preview

      Going About The Country - With Your Eyes Open - Owen Jones

      Going About the Country

      With Your Eyes Open

      I

      EYES that SEE

      SOME people, going about the country, see only what is thrust before their eyes. The observer sets his eyes to search out hidden things, and sees a hundred times as much as the casual onlooker. He soon finds out the usual state of things in any country where he may be. Then he has an eagle eye for any unusual happening. And he sees, without specially looking, when and where matters are amiss.

      He sees also how people do their work and manage affairs—great affairs and small. He is as deeply interested to observe how this man stops a runaway horse as how that man carries a heavy load of rabbits. He is always learning, because there is no knowledge which may not be applied, in some way or another, to some problem in his own life, at some time or other.

      Going about the country, you may notice, one morning, that a field where a cow usually feeds is empty. You wonder why, and begin to find out. You note, first of all, that the gate is closed as usual. Going to the gate, you find a few hairs clinging to the latch. Then you argue that the cow, by rubbing against the latch with her head and horns, has managed to release it, and has passed through, and the gate, swinging to, has fastened the catch. Looking into the neighbouring fields, at last you find the cow, quietly feeding on clover. And you know that cows in clover are cows out of place. A cow in a clover- or a corn-field is very likely to over-eat herself, and fatally. So you may warn the farmer, and perhaps save the life of a cow worth twenty pounds. And this useful work you have found the power to do simply because, when going about the country, you observed and remembered that in a certain field a certain cow was usually to be seen.

      Walking about, you may see a sheep in distress.

      Many people, seeing a sheep on its back, with legs kicking in the air, would think of the sight only as an amusing one, and would pass on their way without an idea that the sheep’s life was in peril. But the sight of a sheep on its back should be as a call of dire distress, and not a moment should be lost in going to the rescue. For a foolish sheep, rolling over, seldom can right itself. It struggles to regain its feet very much after the fashion of a horse rolling for pleasure. But it is struggling for its life.

      It does not take two seconds to sweep an eye across a sheep-dotted down, or over the hurdles of a fold, to see if any sheep are in distress; and you may be sure that by putting a sheep on its legs you are saving about two pounds to its owner, and are saving the sheep from a lingering death through exhaustion.

      The shepherd, strolling about on the hills, now leaning for long spells on his crook, then resting at full length on the grass, may seem to enjoy a lazy life, and to have nothing very much to do all through the day. One of his chief duties is to watch lest any of his sheep roll on their backs. On the downs, where are many mole-hills, and little humps and hillocks in the turf, a sheep may easily roll into a hollow between two such mounds, and then it has no chance to right itself. Especially after a full meal, sheep are liable to roll on their backs, and to be unable to roll again on to their legs, by reason of distended flanks.

      Going about with eyes open, a careful observer finds many footpaths, bridle-ways, and short cuts which may be unknown even to people who have lived in the place all their lives. He notes where there are ponds in case of fire. He marks where the policeman and the doctor live, in case of accidents.

      Seeing rooks hovering in unusual excitement over a dell, he wonders why, and finds out—discovering perhaps a dead sheep that a farmer has missed, or the body of a tramp who has fallen asleep, not to wake again. A sudden swerve in the flight of a flock of birds possibly gives him the clue he was seeking to where companions had halted or camped. A leaf, with a little stone on it, lying on cross-roads, and pointing a certain way, indicates a trail which may be worth following. A great beech tree, with forking stems, suggests a reservoir of water—and who knows when a drop of water may not be worth a lump of gold?

      II

      The Art of SITTING DOWN

      COMFORTABLE seats are to be found to rest upon where some people would never dream of sitting down. A heap of flints by the roadside does not look very inviting, but if you pull down some of the stones so as to make a little hollow, you may sit at your ease, and be almost as cosy as in an arm-chair.

      A delightful resting-place is a pile of faggots in a wood. Faggots of birch-twigs form, perhaps, the softest of such couches. By rolling down one or two of the faggots, you may make yourself quite at home with your back to the wind and your face to the sun. And you will not rest on your faggot-seat very long before the birds and animals in the wood, whom your movements hitherto have frightened, begin to appear and move freely about you. The best of all ways to watch birds and woodland animals is to lie still among the faggots. If you put the faggots back in their places, being careful not to break the bonds with which they are tied, no harm need be done.

      Then a most easy seat to rest upon for a little while is to be made by bending down a sheaf of hazel stems, choosing those with others growing behind them, against which you may rest your back. Sometimes you find a large ash stump shaped as a natural chair, with stout stems to form a support.

      No feather bed is so good as one of springy heather, or piled-up bracken. And a fine bed to sleep in at night is to be made among trusses of hay that a farmer has cut from his stack, and not carted. But farmers are not best pleased to find people sleeping in their hay or straw. All the same, many a cunning old tramp makes a nightly habit of tucking himself into hay- or straw-ricks where sections have been cut out. And one might do worse than burrow for the night into a heap of dry leaves. In the morning, a roll in dew-drenched grass is a fine substitute for a bath—not that tramps often think of it.

      No tree has more comfortable roots for the weary to rest upon than the beech. Often beech roots rise high out of the ground, and are twisted about to form seats of all shapes. And beech trees are very cool to sit beneath, as their leaves most perfectly shade the ground beneath from sunlight.

      III

      WOODCRAFT

      ALL woodcraft is based on observation and deduction. No wood can fail to offer a golden chance to learn and master this science. You may go for days over the fields and hills without finding so much scope for the exercise of your powers of reasoning as one little wood of an acre will give you.

      Let us put to you a little problem which sometimes arises in a wood. Suppose you come to four cross rides in an unknown wood, and suppose you wish to find the shortest way from the wood to a road. By what signs on these tracks might you be able to answer this question?

      You might find that one of the four rides was marked with waggon-wheels; and here, then, is your clue. Waggons that go through woods must come and go to roads. You have yet to decide which way the waggon went when loaded; naturally, when a waggon comes to a wood, it comes to fetch a load. A close examination of the tracks of wheels and horses’ hoofs will decide this question. Where the hoof-marks are most deeply indented there went the horses with their load; and you may see a clear difference between the tracks of the loaded and unloaded waggons.

      But in some rides the waggon-wheels always run exactly in the same deep ruts. You may need another clue before you can be certain of the answer to the problem. Waggons heavily loaded with brushwood, hurdles, crate-rods, or bavins are likely to bend and break the leaves and twigs at the sides of the rides; and by the way these leaves or twigs are broken, you may know the way in which the loaded waggons went.

      So it is with the loaded straw-carts that make their way about the country lanes all through the winter. The straw catches in the hedges of narrow lanes; but in this case the clue of direction is given you by the fact that the straw hangs in the hedge in the opposite way to the cart’s direction. Of course, if a straw is caught on a projecting bush or branch, it will be seen hanging to that side of the bush or branch to which the cart first came. This seems a very simple piece of deduction and scout-craft when it has once been pointed out. But often, on seeing a straw in a hedge, we have asked people the way the cart was going from which the straw had been brushed, and they have had no idea as to how they could find the answer.

      The trained observer always walks cannily, and he never comes blunderingly round a corner, or appears suddenly in any gap or gateway. He likes to be always on the look-out for what is round a corner. So, as he comes to a gateway or a woodland corner, instead of warning creatures to be on the look-out to see him, he goes slowly and softly, on the look-out to see them.

      You will never come softly stalking to a gate leading into a quiet field without having the reward of seeing some sign of wild life; and if you have come up unseen and unheard, you may have the reward of some rarely beautiful sight, such as a covey of partridges, dusting themselves, within a few feet of your eyes.

      It is a commonplace pleasure to see birds and other creatures that are only too well aware of your presence—to see them when your presence is unsuspected is the very triumph of woodcraft. A fascinating study is to wait and discover just how, why, and when the creatures observed become aware of or observe you.

      Another reward of woodcraft is the discovery, from some small sign or sound, that some bird or animal is about to appear before your eyes. The snapping of a twig and the rustling of leaves on the ground nearly always mean that something is afoot. A leaf rustles, you stand perfectly still with your eyes on the spot, then, from the shelter of that single leaf, there comes out a wood-mouse. Still standing like a statue, you hear behind you—tap! tap! tap! Cautiously turning, you see a green woodpecker trying a tree-trunk with his strong bill for the lurking-place of an insect.

      You may see in the woods the remains of wood fires, made by copse-workers while burning rubbish—a great part of it honeysuckle—or for warming themselves and their food at meal-times. Three uses may be made of wood-ashes. They are an excellent manure for the garden. Years ago, before artificial manures were invented, farmers would give as much as fourpence a bushel for wood-ashes, collected from labourers who burnt nothing but wood in their cottages: the farmers mixed the ashes with the seeds of turnips and swedes before sowing. In pure wood-ashes, collected when perfectly dry, you have a fine material in which to pack eggs, to keep them fresh for months. And there is nothing better than dry, sweet wood-ashes in which to store home-cured bacon through the summer. They keep it at a nice, cool, even

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