We returned to walk round High Ash Farm at Caistor St Edmunds. It was interesting to compare the seasons. Spring saw the green shoots appearing and now in Autumn there were lovely shadows everywhere brought about by a low sun.
Thankfully there are landowners still around who value wildlife. I have spoken about Chris Skinner of High Ash Farm before, but now we have an interesting sign put up around the fields of Hethersett by Great Melton Farms. Both show a love and interest in ecology as you can see from the photographs at the top of the page.
There was a chill in the air, although I suppose we shouldn't complain as it is getting on for the back end of September and we must remember that Christmas Day is just 95 days away!!!!
I took a few photographs of the farm which I hope you enjoy.
TV Heaven or Hell?
I was having a read through my website yesterday and re-reading a section I wrote quite some years ago entitled Television Heaven and Hell. Basically it was a look back into the mists of time and some of the good, the bad and the ugly. Thought it would be fun to reproduce a few of the pieces over the next few weeks.
So we start with Wagon Train and Rawhide -
I have three memories of Rawhide. 1/ It seemed to be on television all the time 2/ It featured Clint Eastwood and 3/ It had a signature tune by Frankie Laine that somebody bought for me on a 78 and the words were something like: Rollin rollin/Keep them doggies rollen/Rawhide. Never could understand where the dogs came into the equation. Anyway I have since found that the above lyrics weren't quite spot on but there's too little time to bother about that at the moment.
Rawhide ran from 1959 to 1966 and surrounds the movement of cattle from Missouri to Texas (I know this as I looked it up on the internet). Of course as I was only seven years old at the time I had no idea about the geographic sensibilities or the distances involved or the point of it all. No I was more impressed with the old can that Clint Eastwood used to drink out of (or am I getting mixed up with Wagon Train already?).
Apparently only about 200 head of cattle were used in the filming to represent the herd of 3,000. They must have run around a bit in order to look like a real crowd. I can't remember a single storyline but what the heck. I do know that Eastwood played the part of Rowdy Yates. Couldn't understand that first name as I thought it meant he was rather incontrollable - probably had a brother called Rowdy Behaviour.
At the end of each episode the boss used the immortal words "Move em on/Head em out" which was probably the signal for my mother to make a cup of tea!
Wagon Train seemed much more ridiculous. At least I could see some point in driving cattle along even if I did think the drovers were employed to take them for a run to tire them out before bedtime. But Wagon Train - well that was another kettle of fish altogether. It ran from 1957 until 1965. It starred Ward Bond long before he began making tea bags. He was the trail boss until he messed things up by dying in 1960 and having to be replaced - American series had a habit of just replacing people with no explanation whatsoever. They just changed looks, height, weight etc and we carried on watching.
To me the old train just used to ride around a bit (on horseback of course) and then stop and get surrounded by Indians, kill most of them and then move on and ride around a bit (on horseback of course) and then stop and get surrounded by Indians, kill most of them and then move on and ride around (you probably get the idea by now).