- Samuel Butler
W&N Watercolour in my Moleskine Folio 200gsm Nature Journal
About 2km from us is the Tarlton Brickyard - hectares of ground that have been dug up and soil removed for the making of bricks, leaving the earth pitted with deep holes and piles of heaped ground and smoking kilns where the bricks are being baked.
Some might say it's an eye-sore or a scar on Mother Earth's crust, and I could agree, but besides providing the building industry with the necessary raw materials for our housing needs, this quarry provides endless hours of pleasure to off-road motorbike enthusiasts who race along the holes and over steep mounds of earth, flying through the air like movie stunt men! Horse riders also like to visit, putting their steeds through their paces, using it as a cross-country course. Partridges and pheasants pass through here in great flocks early in the morning before any mining activity, we've spotted them while on early-morning out-rides, and we've often seen snakes, which worries me that they're in such close proximity to all the people here during the day. Nature seems to have this amazing ability of making use of and getting around whatever man does to her. So not all's bad that seems bad!
