Ana McKellar
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anamca.bsky.social
Ana McKellar
@anamca.bsky.social
650 followers 510 following 2.6K posts
Always curious. On a narrowboat, hoping for a passivhaus one day.
Landscape history, nature and biodiversity.
Partially-sighted. Please use descriptive alt-text to help screen-readers and include all.
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anamca.bsky.social
What a great book! I wish I’d known about it when I lived there. I often asked why boots and shoes, and no one could tell me, but I’m glad my supposition was right: pasture for cattle and water for tanning. Good for EH for documenting the buildings. Spotted your drawings.
Labelled pen and ink drawings of a boot and bootmaking machinery Cut away watercolour drawing of home workshop Cutaway watercolour drawing of shoe factory in red brick with big windows Cut away watercolour drawing of shoe factory in red brick with big windows
October 28, 2025 at 9:11 PM
anamca.bsky.social
There *should* be a level board like this one ⬇️ but with low highway budgets, it may have fallen and not been replaced, or on a road like Mill Beck, which is so low in status it’s way off the scale of priorities, maybe never had one, in expectation of local traffic only.
Narrow tarmac lane between high wooded banks and a white post with black level markers to the side. It used to be a track with a stream, which in winter could be half a metre deep. Now the stream is piped below the surface and only the road becomes a long shallow ford in winter, except in brief extreme conditions.
October 12, 2025 at 7:00 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Interesting perspective
informationisbeautiful.net/visualizatio...
Graphic of circle with coloured polygon shapes in it relative to country populations, showing how India and China dwarf the other geographical areas.
September 28, 2025 at 8:17 AM
anamca.bsky.social
The floating cruck … 🥺
This is a fascinating house, probably C16 origin, multiple extensions.
#BuildingsArchaeology #OldHouses
A section of oak cruck beam inside a house from sloping from ceiling of first floor top left to bottom right, where it’s cut off at ground floor ceiling height. White plaster walls.
September 2, 2025 at 6:59 AM
anamca.bsky.social
#SilentSunday
Dry stone wall with big stones at the bottom reducing size of stones as it rises. Propped open wooden gate to right, short grass in foreground and distant view to misty sea
August 24, 2025 at 7:47 AM
anamca.bsky.social
Good article on the breakdown of farming, loss of small farms and loss of variety to agribusiness and development while losing food security to imports from low standard production. At the same time we’re losing allotments so no independence. #Farming #Food theconversation.com/family-farme...
The first crop of wheat I grew, I got £120 a tonne for it – when I was 18 and beer was 50p a pint. So I got 240 pints for every tonne going off the farm. Last year, I got £65 a tonne and beer has come up to £3. So now, I’m getting 20 pints a tonne.
August 13, 2025 at 6:43 AM
anamca.bsky.social
I was, too briefly, but snagged a series of their fantastic stiles and a bonus trig point with benchmark. What a place!
Short concrete pillar set on a cliff top, blue sky and blue sea beyond, grass in the foreground round the square base on the pillar, an Ordnance Survey trig point with a benchmark for surveying levels of the land.
August 7, 2025 at 10:27 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Cornwall between Zennor and St Ives but I understand they’re fairly widespread in the county. A variation has a ‘lintel’ above
Cornish granite stile comprising blocks set parallel across the width of the path supported above a hollow with another block set across at hip height between stone walls. Lots of moss, ferns, and other plants on a drizzly day
August 7, 2025 at 10:23 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Specially for @lakesstiles.bsky.social 😆. It’s beyond my camera skills to capture the size and depth of these granite stiles, even with a hound attempting scale
Cornish ‘cattle grid’ stile comprising four weathered and worn chunky blocks of granite each about a foot high, three feet wide and ten inches deep, set across the path one after the other, with an equivalent gap between each; a dry stone wall to each side. Lots of moss and lichen and a general air of ancient character. A short legged white Jack Russell terrier is standing on its hind legs in one gap with front paws on the foremost block. There’s a depth of several inches below the blocks, the terrier can walk beneath them.
August 7, 2025 at 6:47 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Aww, finished it … and enjoyed every word. Thanks @levparikian.bsky.social for the pleasure.
Lovely book about rediscovering bird-watching, that’s birding not twitching, an important difference you understand.
Front cover of a white book entitled Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian
July 28, 2025 at 6:54 PM
anamca.bsky.social
But you can see why 😉
Coward nlue sky, distant islands, blue to green sea and tiny wavelets lapping pale sand
June 8, 2025 at 9:45 AM
anamca.bsky.social
“The most hazardous building in the UK” from the Public Accounts Committee on decommissioning nuclear Sellafield. Delays to infrastructure build, failure to invest, unsafe, environmental hazard, escalating costs — familiar?
committees.parliament.uk/committee/12...
#Nuclear #Energy #Sellafield
Screenshot from the report. Text says: One building, the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS), has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018 – the PAC calculates, at current rates, enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool roughly every three years. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) accepts this leak is its "single biggest environmental issue", but that the radioactive particles are "contained" in the soil and do not pose a risk to the public.
June 7, 2025 at 6:07 AM
anamca.bsky.social
My last garden was on a sixties estate, bigger gardens than today. 15 yrs ago there were street trees, garden trees and almost every house had a garden front and back. Satellite view now shows ~60% concrete 😔. Mine went from 1 to 2 with a big increase in insects and birds
Town garden, mostly concrete slabs, gravel, crazy paving and ‘lollipop’ thuja trees Town garden with a lot of self-seeded vegetation , soft edges and gravel giving way to plants
June 6, 2025 at 7:03 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Anyone looking for a narrowboat? 44’ thoughtful design to make the most of space, good quality build and well maintained, 5 years old and very lightly used, 250 engine hours. Perfect go anywhere leisure boat for one or two.
www.abnb.co.uk/boat?BoatID=...
#UKCanals #BoatsForSale #Narrowboat
Smart shiny dark blue narrowboat facing the camera on rural canal with wide grassy towpath, trees behind and overcast sky
May 24, 2025 at 12:12 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Excellent article on composting, including that the hardest items to home-compost are those labelled as 100% biodegradable. Don’t be misled by that greenwash! And that weed-killer survives composting 😱
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Extract from article saying : Hay or animal manure can contain aminopyralid residue. This commercial weedkiller, introduced to the UK in 2005, adheres to plant material so effectively that not even the digestion of ruminants or microbes will disable it. The first sign that a batch of compost is affected is that young plants grow pale and distorted. It’s unsettling to realise that homemade compost can be actively damaging to plants.
May 12, 2025 at 6:07 AM
anamca.bsky.social
#SilentSunday
Still water in the gorground reflecting blue sky with puffs of white cloud, a gently rising slope of pasture beyond, a hint of early morning mist.
May 11, 2025 at 7:36 AM
anamca.bsky.social
#ThickTrunkTuesday a sweet chestnut just starting to break leaf.
Large tree trunk in sunshine with grass and past-it daffodils at foot. It has a wide scar down the trunk and missing its big limbs but still sprouting new leaf on younger branches.
April 29, 2025 at 5:27 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Britain: “the toxic poster child of Europe” exposing wildlife (and people!) to an increasingly “toxic soup of chemicals”
wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/news/nationa...
Screenshot from article saying: September 2023 analysis showing that 36 pesticides not allowed for use in the EU are still permitted in the UK: 30 of those have been banned in the EU since Brexit but not here, while the remaining six have been approved for use in the UK since Brexit but not in the EU. More worrying is the fact that the chemicals under scrutiny include 12 that are classified as carcinogens, meaning they are capable of causing cancer; nine hormone disrupting chemicals (EDCs) which may interfere with the normal functioning of the hormone system; and eight chemicals that are toxic to development or reproduction. Thirteen of them are also considered to be ‘highly hazardous’ by the United Nations due to their toxicity to bees, aquatic organisms, or their ability to contaminate water.
April 25, 2025 at 6:09 PM
anamca.bsky.social
No mention of the more obvious millions too ill to work, due to failure to fund healthcare fully for fifteen years, or to respond to changing medical needs of an ageing population, or vaccinate all against covid and flu.
www.ft.com/content/1c2e...
Screenshot of text saying: Most policy specialists agree that the rise in claims for incapacity and disability benefit can be attributed to three main causes: financial incentives pushing people to seek higher levels of benefits payments, a rise in the number of people with mental health conditions since the pandemic, and inadequate support and incentives to get people who are able to work into employment. 
March 16, 2025 at 6:17 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Illuminating from Harry Lambert, England’s jewels for sale, no matter the cost to culture or society, they’re just assets to strip
somethingdistilled.substack.com/p/this-land-...
The sale of County Hall has always struck me as the moment when 20th century Britain died and 21st century Britain began. It captured our direction of travel: in future we would be an asset to be bought. We would have plenty of things worth buying, but from now on we would be downstream of global capital. Prey for vultures.
March 2, 2025 at 3:10 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Yay, the man who might answer a question from the map that’s intrigued me: what are the vegetated rectangular enclosures along Figham Bank? (Red arrow)
Extract of ordnance survey map of flat land with drains and river
February 22, 2025 at 9:40 AM
anamca.bsky.social
There’s a useful setting to remind you 😉
Screenshot of settings page with Require alt text positive
February 6, 2025 at 9:36 AM
anamca.bsky.social
Yay! Important day: sunrise before 8 and set after 4.30, even if the effect is obscured by gloomy murk, I know it’s there ☀️.
Screenshot of weather app with details of the day (wet, gloomy, cold) and an important bottom line of sunrise and sunset times 7:59 and 16:33
January 23, 2025 at 8:45 AM
anamca.bsky.social
Modest would be exaggeration for my local ‘murmuration’, I grieve for them being so few, valiantly following their instincts, and still giving pleasure
Small close group of dark birds against grey dusk sky with silhouettes of shrubs below
January 13, 2025 at 8:22 PM
anamca.bsky.social
Happy solstice. Margaret Atwood’s poem captures the importance of this day for me
Photo of snowy ground and a line of bare trees with upward sweeping branches against a winter sunset sky of peachy-pink. And text: Solstice poem by Margaret Atwood This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath, the door of a vanished house left ajar.
December 21, 2024 at 4:07 PM