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“ARE FARMERS OBSESSED by old baths?” asked Kevin when we came across this fine old disused specimen in a farmyard on the North York Moors. To be fair we had seen several in the past few weeks; old white bowls worn matt by the weather and left beside sheds or animal pens. At first glance they could look like rubbish, but of course they were kept for a reason. Disused baths make excellent spare drinking troughs, saving a few quid and adding an oddly picturesque element to farmyards. This one seemed to have been retired from trough duty but retained as a gathering place for chickens. I was trying to explain the practicalities of recycling to Kevin as he photographed this bath, but he was interested only in the fact that the chickens looked happy. “That's the main thing I worry about with farms,” he said. “Are the animals miserable? You don’t like to think they are. If old baths make chickens happy, I say use more old baths.”•