Wales is Kool

In article
,
DaveS writes
On Jun 21, 8:24*pm, "W. D. Grey" wrote:

Yes, On the A484, a truely beautiful streach, but scary with all the
curves. Then to Cardigan and North down the A847, mostly a great road.
Its my limited understanding that Wales avoided most of the enclosure
commission efforts so the "B" roads and lessers are the mostly intact
net of the middle ages. Is that more or less the case?

Beautiful grazing country. But tell me this: why so little land
devoted to row crops, grain, peas or alfalfa? A lot of the land looks
tillable, and needy of nitrogen, which the alfalfa and peas (legumes)
fix copiously?

Can't say, but I know a lot of cattle and sheep rearing oges on in W
Wales.

Today hiked a bit of the Coast trail North out of LLangranog. Ran into
some fly fishers headed out to fish the far points of
Ynys- Lochtyn, a high rock stack with a sheep pasture on top, pointing
out into the Irish sea. Friendly folks.Have good sketch and notes for
a painting of the point.

Nos da
Dave

Thank you Dave,

A Nos Da i chwi hefyd.
--
Bill Grey

In article ,
writes
On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:24:04 +0100, "W. D. Grey"
wrote:


I live about 50 or so miles east of Cardigan.

er...a mere jump away...er, he shouldn't break a sweat...

TC,
R

True, but if you straighten the roads out it's more like 90 miles :-)
--
Bill Grey

On Jun 22, 6:06*pm, "W. D. Grey" wrote:
In article ,
writes

On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:24:04 +0100, "W. D. Grey"
wrote:

I live about 50 or so miles east of Cardigan.

er...a mere jump away...er, he shouldn't break a sweat...

TC,
R

True, but if you straighten the roads out it's more like 90 miles :-)
--
Bill Grey

And if you straighten the path the drivers take on those roads, it
gets up to around 110...

--riverman

On Jun 22, 11:05*am, "W. D. Grey" wrote:
In article
,
DaveS writes

On Jun 21, 8:24*pm, "W. D. Grey" wrote:

Yes, On the A484, a truely beautiful streach, but scary with all the
curves. Then to Cardigan and North down the A847, mostly a great road.
Its my limited understanding that Wales avoided most of the enclosure
commission efforts so the "B" roads and lessers are the mostly intact
net of the middle ages. Is that more or less the case?

Beautiful grazing country. But tell me this: why so little land
devoted to row crops, grain, peas or alfalfa? A lot of the land looks
tillable, and needy of nitrogen, which the alfalfa and peas (legumes)
fix copiously?

Can't say, but I know a lot of cattle and sheep rearing oges on in W
Wales.



Today hiked a bit of the Coast trail North out of LLangranog. Ran into
some fly fishers headed out to fish the far points of
Ynys- Lochtyn, a high rock stack with a sheep pasture on top, pointing
out into the Irish sea. Friendly folks.Have good sketch and notes for
a painting of the point.

Nos da
Dave

Thank you Dave,

A Nos Da i chwi hefyd.
--
Bill Grey

Talked to guy outside a pub where I tried 3 Dragons for the first time
today (great stuff) after a hike up thru the gorge of the River Teifi,
and he said that essentially the sun days in this area limited grain
yields, while further South yields were much higher. Thus the focus on
dairy and livestock. The3se folks produce wonderful cheeses which sell
at prices much lower than comparable US cheeses. There is quite a
local food/organic food/slow food/fresh food movement here.

This fellow seemed very ag knowledgable and thought the same climate
factors limited alfalfa to 1-2 cuttings a season, whereas we get 3-4
on the dryside of Washington on fertile irrigated land. I still think
field corn and sialage corn, with peas in the rotation could make
sense here and be compatible with beef/lamb/hog production. Anyway its
all interesting to see how land and other resources are managed in
other places. Nos da
Dave
Turns out our neighbor here is the Welsh comedian Dewi Pws.

In article
,
DaveS writes
alked to guy outside a pub where I tried 3 Dragons for the first time
today (great stuff) after a hike up thru the gorge of the River Teifi,
and he said that essentially the sun days in this area limited grain
yields, while further South yields were much higher. Thus the focus on
dairy and livestock. The3se folks produce wonderful cheeses which sell
at prices much lower than comparable US cheeses. There is quite a
local food/organic food/slow food/fresh food movement here.

This fellow seemed very ag knowledgable and thought the same climate
factors limited alfalfa to 1-2 cuttings a season, whereas we get 3-4
on the dryside of Washington on fertile irrigated land. I still think
field corn and sialage corn, with peas in the rotation could make
sense here and be compatible with beef/lamb/hog production. Anyway its
all interesting to see how land and other resources are managed in
other places. Nos da
Dave
Turns out our neighbor here is the Welsh comedian Dewi Pws.

Hi Dave,

Seems like you got the answers to you questions then. I presume the guy
you spoke to was Dewi Pws.

I had to look him up on Google where is appears he's a "Welsh" Welsh
entertainer. It would seem he is very enthusiastic about the Welsh
language and communicates largely in that medium especially in his
entertainment.

I know nothing about him other than what Google can provide.
--
Bill Grey

On Jun 24, 8:47*am, "W. D. Grey" wrote:

Seems we have been in a hotbed of Welsh language speakers. Im into
languages and in the process of getting around have asked a few times
of folks for help pronouncing things. Well, Our little group has
become something of a community project. Yesterday the postman stopped
and backed up on the little lane we were hiking down to administer a
pop quiz for retention and added a few new vocabulary words by way of
assignment. Then at dinner another fellow pointed out proudly that he
had taught me the one and two letter connectors, (the y words), to
which Dewi added some racy bits. I think it would be possible to be
speaking Welsh in a month or two more of immersion as almost everybody
here is at least partially bi-lingual and once you get some of the
things like the W, the ff, the dd, the ch etc down, the spelling
doesn't seem so strange. And many of the words that look weird in the
Welsh spelling, sound out like English, pronounced with a heavy Welsh
accent.

Today spent some time on a tiny (by US standards) dairy farm (10
hectacers) with a guy named Morris. He runs jersey cows (the little
brown ones) for cream and cheese, and some pigs., for the skim milk.
He showed me this old breed of pig from glouster that was 600+ pounds,
and as gentile as you would want. I don't know my pigs but I haven't
seen this breed in the US. Had a pork and apple burger from his last
kill and it tajsted great. These are good people here. I hope that
these efforts they are making to market the specialness of their farm
products helps more of the small holders survive. There is a similar
effort just getting legs in the valley where my place is in E. Wash.
One frenchie 3 farms up river from me is doing goats and goat cheese
on a commercial scale, and some friends relocated their bee/honey
business up on the North fork of the Touchet and scaled up. There is
decent infrastructure here in a mostly unused Seneca asparagas
operation so who knows.

Anyway, this has been a very interesting trip for me and tommorrow we
head North

Dave
Everytime I catch a look at the Teife I regret not packing my rod. One
the plus Ive got enough paintings in process for half a little coffee
house show already.

On Jun 26, 6:09*pm, DaveS wrote:


Today spent some time on a tiny (by US standards) dairy farm (10
hectacers) with a guy named Morris. He runs jersey cows (the little
brown ones) for cream and cheese, and some pigs., for the skim milk.
He showed me this old breed of pig from glouster that was 600+ pounds,
and as gentile as you would want. I don't know my pigs but I haven't
seen this breed in the US.

Well, I'm no authority on pigs either, nor am I the international
traveler that some of our brethren here are. Nevertheless, it seems
to me that in Wales, as in most of the rest of the world, it should
hardly be necessary to point out that the pigs are gentile.

However, the skim milk comes as a bit of a surprise.....still treif,
i'd wager.

g.

g.

In article
,
DaveS writes
eems we have been in a hotbed of Welsh language speakers. Im into
languages and in the process of getting around have asked a few times
of folks for help pronouncing things. Well, Our little group has
become something of a community project. Yesterday the postman stopped
and backed up on the little lane we were hiking down to administer a
pop quiz for retention and added a few new vocabulary words by way of
assignment. Then at dinner another fellow pointed out proudly that he
had taught me the one and two letter connectors, (the y words), to
which Dewi added some racy bits. I think it would be possible to be
speaking Welsh in a month or two more of immersion as almost everybody
here is at least partially bi-lingual and once you get some of the
things like the W, the ff, the dd, the ch etc down, the spelling
doesn't seem so strange. And many of the words that look weird in the
Welsh spelling, sound out like English, pronounced with a heavy Welsh
accent.

Hi Dave,

the problem with the Welsh language is - there is literary Welsh and
colloquial Welsh and never the twin shall meet :-)

I love Cymraeg Llenyddol - Literary Welsh and that can be quite daunting
for a learner. Colloquial Welsh is equivalent to (say) doncha Know.
and a learner might never realise the origin of the phrase or word.

The mutations in Welsh are a mine field, but for a true natural Welsh
speaking Welshman it is natural for him to mutate certain consonants.

You mentioned the y word. this is the definite article and causes the
first consonant of a feminene noun to mutate. eg a cat would be cath
but /the/ cat would be y gath.

My the way it is said that in Welsh we have no swear words in stead we
blaspheme.

Mwynhewch eich gwyliau.

Perhaps one of your new found friends will translate for you.

Bye for now.
--
Bill Grey

In article , W. D. Grey
writes
In article
,
DaveS writes
eems we have been in a hotbed of Welsh language speakers. Im into
languages and in the process of getting around have asked a few times
of folks for help pronouncing things. Well, Our little group has
become something of a community project. Yesterday the postman stopped
and backed up on the little lane we were hiking down to administer a
pop quiz for retention and added a few new vocabulary words by way of
assignment. Then at dinner another fellow pointed out proudly that he
had taught me the one and two letter connectors, (the y words), to
which Dewi added some racy bits. I think it would be possible to be
speaking Welsh in a month or two more of immersion as almost everybody
here is at least partially bi-lingual and once you get some of the
things like the W, the ff, the dd, the ch etc down, the spelling
doesn't seem so strange. And many of the words that look weird in the
Welsh spelling, sound out like English, pronounced with a heavy Welsh
accent.

Hi Dave,

the problem with the Welsh language is - there is literary Welsh and
colloquial Welsh and never the twin shall meet :-)

I love Cymraeg Llenyddol - Literary Welsh and that can be quite
daunting for a learner. Colloquial Welsh is equivalent to (say) doncha
Know. and a learner might never realise the origin of the phrase or word.

The mutations in Welsh are a mine field, but for a true natural Welsh
speaking Welshman it is natural for him to mutate certain consonants.

You mentioned the y word. this is the definite article and causes the
first consonant of a feminene noun to mutate. eg a cat would be cath
but /the/ cat would be y gath.

My the way it is said that in Welsh we have no swear words in stead we
blaspheme.

Mwynhewch eich gwyliau.

Perhaps one of your new found friends will translate for you.

Bye for now.

Please forgive the typos - it appears my English isn't all it's cracked
up to be :-)
--
Bill Grey

On Jun 28, 4:34*am, "W. D. Grey" wrote:

ddiolch Bill. I have enjoyed my holiday time in Wales and have been
blown away by its people, countryside and the bit of history Ive
picked up. Then went North to Chester and then Manchester/Bury, the
Lake country, Bronzewood, Ruskindale (;-)) and a bit of Yorkshire
before training down to London. Wales definitely the best. Got enough
in sketches etc for a small show.

Yep I was told that the literary and colloquial Welsh differ greatly.
Also that the regional dialects differ greatly and observed that
pronunciation differed allot just going 20-50 miles or so. But what
impressed me most was the dynamism of the language and what looked to
me like a critical mass of active speakers that point to survival of
this Celtic language in a homogenizing world. Little things like kids
speaking the language at recess on the schoolyard, people bragging
about their kids in college at a Tesco, the capture and modification
of useful foreign technical and cultural words, the adoption of the
language by non-ethnic Welsh in the Welsh language southern Welsh
speaking heartland, etc.

London. What can I say. Never been there before. Impressive but not my
thing. The National Gallery and the British Museum made it worthwhile
for me. Back home now. Wales definitely has me as a booster.

Dave