Edges

Stone walls and slate fences.

Even in the wildest of landscapes there are walls. Jigsaws of rock and slate, running for miles, through bog, over boulders, weaving around the contours, marking the boundaries, keeping in or out the stock and flock. Clothed in moss, splashed in lichen, a home for ferns and mice and wrens.
Imagine, each rock, lifted, examined chosen for it's shape and size, placed with care and concentration. The farmer, the prisoner of war, the quarryman. Hard hands, hard lives. The walls... monuments of their toil.

The crooked teeth of the traditional slate fence make for a great foreground to a photograph. Beautifully decorated with lichens, each tooth has its own shape and pattern. They stand shoulder to shoulder, feet buried soundly, heads bound by wire, a thin palisade of metamorphic wafers.