Valley Girl
 

Hohum....I have been a bit down the past couple if days, so decided to cheer me and Pilau up with a nice valley walk:


Decided to edit this so the pictures are bigger...I know it's bad bandwidthwise, but Shibden Valley doesn't really come through on little snaps:P

Pilau in his natural habitat:P

Wow. Just wow. I'd walk there every weekend if I lived there.

And more valley shots :P You can see the town of Halifax nestled in the basin of the hills. (On the second picture)

It's SO beautiful! And it's really nice to see Pilau again. Thanks!

pretty!

I walk there, or thereabouts as often as I can. Most days. Sometimes I get a few weeks where it's just two or three times, but mostly I try to get out there daily.

*Pilau waves at Shawnee*

Don't know if it comes through on the photo but, the last picture shows typical Pennine sheep, grazing in a vertical field :P

:) Hi Pilau...good doggy. Remember my poem, Pilau? (God I am so desperately starved for attention.) ;) Give Pilau a hug for me. Now, when can I move over there?

*chuckles* I read that and glanced over at him: he's asleep on the floor in front of the sofa. His paws keep twitching and jerking. I think he's chasing something.

He did chase a rabbit today. (Note to Ali: not a feral one, just a normal wild one :P) I saw it zip between the heather, like a little grey blur. Once Pil noticed it he was off...course the rabbit had long since skittered away, but he could smell it! Ohhh....what a fine time he had...running about in and out of clumps of heather and up and down the slope. Every so often I could tell he'd caught a fresh scent, 'cause he'd started barking, but a really joyous, yip of a bark.

Dana, are you in Nova Scotia? If so, it looks beautiful there, never been.

*smiles* It is beautiful, but no it's Yorkshire in England.

James Herriot is her -- Pilau's -- veterinarian.

That is just a gorgeous place. (sigh)

Yeah, gorgeous... but it's hard to enjoy the scenery when there's the constant danger of being torn to pieces, by vicious feral kitties, at every turn.

It's ok. I have my vicious not-so-feral beardie to 'protect' me.

Hmm...okay this is an experiment to see if I can link an image rather than attach a file.http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1288/...7b60b7f32c.jpg

Happy as a pig in...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1051/...afd0f4467a.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1252/...9809c78a22.jpg

Apparently, that way of linking isn't supposed to be used, flickr rules have it that it's supposed to link back...I have the code for it, I just don't know where to input that....

Okay...am trying a different way of linking. Apparently the way I was trying just now doesn't work with BB code.

This is me, enjoying the sun :)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1210/...0e916d8ed9.jpg

The village school, where my youngest niece goes.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1150/...ea542954a7.jpg

Pilau just launching into a mad few minutes of jumping about and barking.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1045/...d6f97f127c.jpg

How beautiful! Wow- even I feel better now. Thanks Dana!

This is my valley. You can't tell, but it is surrounded with hills on 3 sides. My camera isn't so good as yours, but hopefully these turned out ok enough. This is the view from my front window. I decided to pick a peaceful place to live and just go ahead and do the commute to the city and back every day. I need cheering up when I get up and when I go home. :) My garden is the little brown spot in the back of the photo. (My first garden- I'm so thrilled- it only took 30 years)
The last one with the trees is the apple orchard from the ground.
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The little shed on the left we just converted into a little art shack. Our first one of those too. It's been so peaceful. God I'm glad to have decided to turn into a country person. Best decision ever.

Is that Wisteria growing over the roof?

Yep sure is xo- another photo...I love the Wysteria.

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These photos were from winter/real early spring- I suppose I should go take some shots of everything in bloom- the apples are almost ready and the wysteria has really covered the whole thing in large green leaves. Pretty.

Oh what a wonderful setting for a home. That's just beautiful.

Just beautiful. i bet its also beautiful in the summer (looks wintery in those shots)

edit: until i saw page 2 and all the sun!

how much do you pay your pretty doggy to pull such cute poses?!

*Smiles at Sun Sparkz* Pilau gets paid in sausages and gravy bones. He gets a bonus if he doesn't bite anybody.

The first shots look less summery because they're taken in the late evening (around 8:30 pm) the second lot of shots were taken a little before lunchtime.

I think my favourite thing in those shots is my niece's school. It's a far cry from the school I (and indeed her father) went to: Gaskell Street Primary, otherwise known as gasbags. Overlooked by the hulk of one of Bolton's remaining redbrick mills, stained black by years of dirt and smog. Surrounded on other sides by a maze of terraced red brick houses and a little fly-built council estate. Every so often there'd be a little green area, where the council had planted stuff to cheer the street up: tight, mean little leaves clustered with violent red berries.

Our Soph, dun't know she's born :P

Aaah...the rolling hillsides! Nice Dana. I think I'll be visiting this thread a lot. What is the purple flower called?

I love your place Cicero! People who live rural ARE the lucky ones.

Dana your pictures are beautiful and so are you. I hope today finds you in better spirits.

That's heather, in bloom. Around here there are whole hillsides carpeted with the stuff.

The yellow gorse bushes are just starting to come into flower, but they look spectacular later in the season. Especially from a distance, they are a kind of child's paint box yellow.

Is Yorkshire a busy city? The kind of thing where you get up out of bed and see your neighbor making coffee in the morning? Or is it kind of a small private town atmosphere with some privacy and quiet? (Sorry my ignorance can be painful at times)

Yeah Sky- we went from a ghetto (in a mid-size town) to the middle of nowhere in another state. Living in a ghetto to save yourself money and trying to plant a community garden- is not really the way to go if any of you are thinking of trying it btw (the road to hell is paved with good intentions). The country has been so refreshing. I don't worry about someone breaking into my car, house, or anyone holding up my husband at gun-point anymore. (well not much) AAaah. That's much better.......I come into the city every day and it just looks like complete pandemonium.

*smiles at Cicero* Yorkshire's a little of everything in that way. Yorkshire is a big place; a County with cities, towns and villages.

Different parts of Yorkshire have different feels to them. I am in what is known as The West Ridings, which is in West Yorkshire. West Yorkshire is very distinct, because much of it. is sprawled across the Pennine range. The closer you get to the Pennines,the more you get the small, textile towns, born of even smaller weaving villages. In fact, the Yorkshire Pennine towns are in some ways more similar to the Lancashire Pennine towns than they are to other areas of Yorkshire. The cities are cramped and less affluent than in the South of England, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield. And around the cities are towns like mine, raised on wool and dye, and with civic pride built into the town centre. Proving themselves to posterity with the Town Hall and the Piece Hall and the Railway station, so grand for such a little town...now half of it houses a children's science museum.

My part of Yorkshire is a place of hotch potch cities, developed as each new thing passes through, and villages of solid yorkshire stone, and Council house estates built, most improbably at the top of a hill, with the ground at one end just vanishing in a sheer drop down to another beautiful valley.

And Leeds and Bradford with their cultural mix. Walk down the high street and smell spice mixing, there's a little banghra coming from a radio somewhere and people are milling in the centre....further out we're in student digs, grand old town houses, three stories high, bay windows and an attic for the maid, all flats now, full of students and ...those passing through.

Further out, in a different part of Yorkshire:
There's York, once named Jorvik, the famed capital of Erik Bloodaxe, the Viking, warrior king. Framed by stone built city walls, cut through by the River Ouse, and under constant occupation since the iron age, York is the seat of the secondary Archbishopric in England. Richard III was the Duke of York, and the wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster decided the fate of the English nation. Beautiful place, still has a lot of the medieval stuff still there, so good place to visit.

Then there's Sheffield, home of Sheffield Steel, the heart of Yorkshire's industry and coal to drive it. Drive into Sheffield along the motorway and you know you are in The Industrial North.

In between all these places are others much like them and a lot of beautiful countryside....some flat, some mountainous, some lush and some craggy.

Yorkshire is like a little country. There is a great deal of variance between it and other regions and there's also a lot of variance between different parts of Yorkshire. It was of course (long ago, back in the 10th Century) a kingdom in its own right.

And plain white hogs.

So charming Dana! Please be sure not to forget this thread when you have more photos! I live in one of the greenest pockets of New Mexico but it is also the darkest (in social climate).....it's beautiful but most here are land rich and money poor. There is nothing wrong with that of course (I prefer it actually) but then there are the drug and gang elements juxtaposed beside a long history of a beautiful self-sustaining rural community. There are multi-generational farmers and riff-raff. Sometimes they are one in the same! There are pockets of gang violence in this rural and beautiful setting. People tell me not to live there, but it's so gorgeous and rich in natural aesthetics and history. I'm not afraid to take all that good with a touch of bad....


Here..This photo is interesting. This is pretty close to my house on the side of a green country road. Kind of an example of the darkness in the beauty of this Valley that I'm talking about. Some people, depending on their beliefs I'm sure find it beautiful. I just think it's scary. My camera again- fails to capture the essence of this quite frightening *to me* piece of religious art but hopefully you can get the idea.
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I would be interested in more shots of New Mexico, Cicero! :)

As would I. Looks like a fascinating place.

Yeah Cicero, I do find that quite disturbing.

It's one of those moments when you are starting to really enjoy the landscape and go to your happy place....and then...well......you see something like that.


As for New Mexico photo requests....alright guys/gals! There are many photos for the taking and sharing. Plenty to go around!

Missed ya yesterday Shawnee *btw*. Have you been neglecting the cellar or what?

lol...I've been cheating on the Cellar with my j-o-b, and some other, shall we say, diversions. :rolleyes:
But I'm paying close attention to you all, especially the sharp smart ladies like you and DanaC! You go girls! :D

On the drive home from work!



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Wow. Just wow.

That's beautiful, Cicero!

Shawnee- tell fresh that this is what a reservation actually looks like.

Who? FC? Nahhhhhh. ;)

Yeah- we wouldn't want him to actually go to one. Or anywhere for that matter.......Oooh..I'm bad bad today.

You're gonna get me in trouble! And I've been so good! :lol:

Oh- yeah......"good" right.......if the old "bad" is the new "good".

;)

You know the saying: when I'm good I'm very good, when I'm bad, I'm better.

Evidence right here. Of course I've been cheating on the cellar with my job lately too....god this sucks. I don't even have time for ridiculous arguements drenched in negativity right now. What is my little world coming to?

I must get internet at home so I can get drunk and be mean properly! This Ms Nice Guy has got to go. ;)

I know! You guys are getting stuck with ms. hangover! Missing all the "good" stuff.

http://C:\Documents and Settings\HP_...g pics 009.jpgDanaC....The photos in the heather are beautiful. I loved the heather smell when I was over there and took many pictures of moors and heather (enough to bore anyone looking through my photos). Cicero, The pics of N. Mexico are great. I have been through New Mexico...quite a number of years ago. Loved Albuquerque and the pink hills as we came down into the town early in the morning as the sun rose. I'll have to search out some photos of here in Tennessee. Meantime, here is a picture of my little home. (If I did this right) : /

There we go! That is my place in the winter. (If we have snow)

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...ontheriver.jpg Where I walk my dogs, overlooking the Tennessee River

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...sunflowers.jpg My place in the summertime but before I had planted some of my shrubs and flowers.

Wow. What a landscape you have surrounding your home Philly! Makes my valley look tiny!!

Yours seems tiny in a way but so much packed into every mile and such incredible views and the ever changing sky! We get hot here and sometimes the sky is just faded with the heat, especially this summer. But...we do have the Smokey Mountains and they are beautiful too in their way. I am only an hour and a half from the mountains. A lovely respite from the heat usually.

Our fair Valley has some historical value. I'm living out of a 300 year old plaza that happens to be the oldest standing Plaza in NM. It's awesome. The Spanish built it for protection from the indians. Here is a shot of the part of the plaza that wasn't gentrified or maintained. This is one side of the old plaza that created a square with the planting done in the middle. I live on the south side and this is the west side from the northern view.(Just in case Shawnee's ghost is lurking, I know she wanted more shots)

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Beautiful! I love old buildings. There's nothing quite like being surrounded by history when you come home.

This is an acequia. (I didn't know what an acequia was before I moved here so I'm assuming others are confused too) These are awesome. This main one feeds the entirety of our property with much needed groundwater and has been split in three directions feeding the orchard, pond, and garden. It is also historical....it was built previous to the plaza by the Tano indians. Sorry I'm in a rush......

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I've posted a few shots of this view, but I really liked this one, so at the risk of repetition....:P Taken this afternoon whilst walking Pilau.

Wow - very cool cicero, I'd love to see more of it.