Utilitarian Pasture

My walk yesterday was far hillier than I expected. There was one moment when I stood still to appreciate where I was. The insects were buzzing and the heat was radiating from the dry grasses and the land rose and fell in such a way that I could barely see the swell of the earth around me. 

It was a rough looking pasture, with scruffy weeds, prickle vines and thistles. It could have been a Scottish moor, so remote and wild did it seem. But it was, in fact, a pipeline meadow or an electric transmission meadow, some sort of utilitarian pasture. Our open space is not for grazing but for the humming wires and busy pipes that bring us what we need to survive.  

Beauty, in this case, is a byproduct.