Abandonment Issues

It’s funny, as you drive through the countryside here, you might see things in fields that look abandoned, but when you go for a walk looking for abandoned things, they don’t appear. What looks like a bathtub abandoned on the edge of a farmer’s field, upon closer inspection turns out not to have been abandoned at all, but has been reused as a trough for miniature horses or sheep. The other week, I took Princess Pup on a 90 minute walk through muddy fields and side roads in search of abandoned things. Didn’t find many. But I did find these two shot of things that looked abandoned.

First we saw this old shed. There is a padlock on the corrugated tin door, but it hasn’t been opened in ages, as there is a collection of leaves and branches infront of it. It’s at the meeting point of two footpaths; one leading directly into the village about three minutes walk away, the other to the edge of the village and the lane leading toward the hamlet in which my home sits. It’s a bit startling to find this as the footpath has led us on an iddylic journey through fields and across babbling brooks.

Further along that same footpath, past the ponies in the pasture edged by row houses, is a meadow with cows in it that is separated from the houses by a high brick wall. There I saw a jumble of tub and troughs that definitely looked abandoned. I’m relatively certain the owner of the meadow knows they’re there, and would be willing to bet that the owner probably put them there. Perhaps they are old cow troughs. Who knows.

The walk home took us through another waterlogged mud field and Princess Pup stopped several times as mud became lodged in her paws. I cleaned it out with my fingers as I know it must have been like walking with a pebble in your shoe, and continued home. As we walked up the lane toward our house, I looked into the Forgotten Wood and remembered the ice house. I put the Princess in our yard and latched the gate. Then I went exploring, treated to periodic howls of outrage from our yard that I had abandoned the Princess and gone off on my own.

Abandonment takes many forms, I guess.