After days of silent sheep and passive cows, these pastured pigs were anything but! I had to record them vocalizing! This is a edited section including the final snort when one of the pigs finally decided that I was scary, and it snorted and plunged away. You’ll hear me backing quickly up at the end. I was worried that someone would arrive and think I was there from an animal rights organization, but honestly…these pigs were healthy, agile, and energetic, and the fields didn’t smell, and there was plenty of grass and browse as well as feed in the metal buckets you hear them thumping in the recording. At exactly 15 seconds in, you can hear a pig shake his head. His ears are flapping.

What was shocking to me was the roar of traffic when we had to cross the M4. We’ve been in very quiet country for days, and this rushing sound was jarring….

Fortunately, we climbed rapidly away from the M4, and up to the Liddington Castle. Much like the Uffington Castle, it’s just an earthworks, but this one is occupied by cows instead of sheep!

This is also the highest point along the whole Ridgeway Trail, and as we arrived the sun burned through the clouds. We celebrated with a lunch of an oathoney bar, a Trio bar, and my last package of Newman’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups.

An unconcerned cow ate her way closer and closer to us, until I had to record her noisy grazing. The loudest sound up there!

The bright sky afforded some beautiful views of the English Countryside in the afternoon.

Now you must get out your copy of the brilliant 30-year-old Masterpiece Theatre series Flambards, and watch it from beginning to end. Between the horses and the farms…I keep hearing the sound track of that show, and seeing the tree and hedgerow silhouettes on the horizon.