The Scratching Post - Dartmoor

Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to view, comment or fave.

 

Thanks to Flickr I was made aware of this place this year.

Since then I've seen it in books too - so I'm sorry to say it's a bit of an iconic or cliched shot which I always prefer to avoid but they keep calling to me unfortunately :(

Even though I spent many holidays in Plymouth for the first 16 years of my life & most of my summers in Devon for the last 15 years, this week was the first time I'd ever been to this spot - great how Flickr lets us see so many places through everyone else's eyes (& lenses) & inspires us to get out there & explore.

When I first saw pictures of this, the perspective made me think the post was about 18 inches high - the kind of thing you sometimes get in a garden to mark the grave of a small family pet like a hamster, guinea pig or gerbil - but it's actually very big.

Commonly known as the Windy Post this chunk of granite is around 7 feet tall but despite the misleading name the reason it is leaning is not down to the wild Dartmoor winds.

You see, Dartmoor ponies are quite poorly equipped to deal with itchiness.

Unlike human hands and fingers which are extremely sophisticated both in terms of placement and application of pressure - ponies hooves are far too unwieldy & crude for localised scratching - and of course they can't reach all over the pony's body.

The only other major tool in the pony's scratching armoury is a vigorously whipping tail action, but even this together with hooves leaves large areas unscratchable.

For this reason Dartmoor ponies have been known to rub themselves against this post to relieve any urgently itchy areas - being intelligent animals they usually rub downhill allowing gravity to apply pressure and do most of the work as they rub gently backwards and forwards.

Over the last several hundred years this has caused the post to lean downwards :)

I just managed to get here about an hour before sunset and couldn't believe my luck that there were some great clouds & crepuscular Rays appearing to highlight the post!

Shortly after this the rain came down very heavily & the sunset was very poor but was grateful for this light & reflections.

- must dash my wife has just caught me on Flickr again which means another spanking is imminent :(

Done