Thank you!Thank you for taking the time to read this, for those of you who have been along to our talks and events and have been in touch, and to the many people who have helped us to bring our ideas to fruition, and who continue to inspire us. Our next newsletter will come in November. If you’d like to keep up with our news more regularly, the best way is via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – the coloured links to these pages are at the end, just scroll down. And if you think someone you know might like to hear of our work, then please forward on this newsletter. As has become the custom we will sign off with a poem. In the process of meeting farmers across the Yorkshire Dales, we discussed a wide range of topics to build a record of farming and landscape: we gathered views on family histories, sheep, walls and barns, prices at the marts, birdlife, quad bikes, dogs and money, cattle, trees, meadows and more. Alongside questions relating to farming practices and landscape features, we asked each farmer a are personal question: ‘How does it feel to walk across this land?’. Harriet has woven the answers into a poem, below. With best wishes for the autumn, harriet and rob ~
How does it feel? how does it feel
just being out on top, first light, and it’s quiet
as clouds tug shadows over fells and darken walls,
the thousand-mile march of hand-placed stones,
signatures of men and women you’ve known
in this small part of the world how does it feel
when the curlew names the spring and the sun creeps in,
to walk out and see lambs laiking, flowers prove the end of winter,
good mule gimmers, the tups and yows whose bloodlines
carry hopes and dreams and a black-white-silverness that hits you
so you can’t stop looking how does it feel
gales and rain, and sometimes snow, the weather in your face
day after day, and then sun, grouse lecking in a feathered parade,
to see a fox slink across a field and not take your lambs, the pleasure
of getting through when things go wrong, owls fledging in the barn
it takes your breath away how does it feel
to gather in your flock and watch your dogs work fast and sure,
this land mapped by smell and paw, and each year, lambs saved,
calves born – you work hard, too hard maybe, but that’s how it is
and each time you go away, you turn back up the dale, grateful
to be home again how does it feel
to see the land improve, to hold a prize from Tan Hill, Moorcock,
Muker Show, the back end sales, when the animals reward your care;
there’s a duty, a privilege – our forefathers made this place,
and we’re hefted, heafed, hoofed, feel it in our bones
just being alive, and the beauty | 
