One of the yoga “people” who came to the retreat three weeks ago noticed that our fields show evidence of ridge and furrow farming.  These ridges and furrows could be the result of strip farming in the Middle Ages when small families managed one length of land within a large open field held in common. The location of the plough was the same every year so that ridges and dips between pieces of land developed.  There is also another cause of ridges and furrows which resulted from horse drawn one sided ploughs which caused a ridge and furrow to develop as the horse and plough turned around to return at the edge of the field and plough the next part of the field.  In both cases the ridges of earth and the dips in the earth developed over many years and there are not many examples of this ancient farming practice left in this country as the fields have been ploughed up with tractors and flattened to enable the efficient production of wheat and barley and rape and other crops.  So we, Jeremy and I, have no intention of flattening our precious field and will allow the sheep and cows to graze to their hearts’ content on the ridges and in the furrows.  The torrential rain today has settled in the furrows showing the patterns that I describe above.