Sleepy Forest Morning

We had a sharp frost last night. I looked outside just before midnight and the sky was clear. Stars flickered brightly against a black night sky and through the haze of the Milky Way.

This morning, bird baths and water troughs needed ice to be broken, but the sun soon warmed and thawed light frost on unmown grass.

Out on the Forest heath, the commoners` ponies relished the growing warmth. After breakfasting on gorse and the new sprinklings of grass growing amongst bracken, several of them were lying down to rest. Sunbathing.

Our Ginger and the Lion Pony feasted on their breakfast hay. They are beginning to lose their winter coats and life is becoming itchy, so their rugs were taken off and the sun warmed their backs.

Through the hedge, I saw Fudge, the young mare, fast asleep in her bracken bed, her nose resting on the ground.

She and her companions flicked an ear and stirred as the two grey ponies came up to the gate and peered in.

Old Snowy.......

...and her daughter. Both are waiting for new foals in another month.

The rusty chestnut pony dozed in the lee of flowering gorse.......

....while her closest friend, the black mare with one blue eye, slept not far away.....

....her hooves tucked up as she opened her one brown eye to watch me walking by.

Over a neighbour`s back gate, a tiny, deep blue scilla flowered by an upturned wheelbarrow......

....and back in the garden, pear buds are swelling, waiting to burst open, as the warming sun brings spring closer by the hour.

The New Forest Pony and Cattle Breeding website has more information about the ponies and the Gallery page shows examples of the breed who have become prize winners and who have excelled in a variety of equestrian activities. Many of them were born out on the Forest, like the new generation of foals who should arrive in April and in May.

www.newforestpony.com

Lucy - a Growing Kitten and her Friends

Lucy Kitten has been with us since November. I found her in a local animal shelter. She and her brother were the remaining two of an abandoned litter.

Despite her difficult beginnings, Lucy is a sweet natured and friendly kitten. Six months old, she has eaten well and grown to more than double her original size. She is catching up fast with the older cats, although her slim features make it unlikely that she will be a large adult. There is something almost Oriental about her profile and her voice has that deeper, throatier quality of a Siamese/ Burmese cat.

Lucy follows me wherever I go. Here, we are waiting for photos to load onto my blog.

She has just caught a Catnip Mouse, again.....

Forest Cat is her best friend. He washes her face every day.

The Ginger Man loves playing on the stairs. A three-way game of feline Tag, up and down, with Forest Cat and Lucy.

When he has had enough, he will lie down and watch the other two. If Lucy gets too bold and jumps on him, she might receive a smart smack from a paw, but there are never claws involved.

Last week, I introduced a collar for the first time. It unclips very easily if caught and is flourescent, in case Lucy wanders out into the lane one evening. It also has a bell, to warn the birds that a predator is around.

Lucy has only been out a few times, with me, but soon I shall have to be brave and let her explore while the two other cats are outside with her.

Lucy now sleeps with the other cats and dogs. Unfortunately, one of the dogs has lost his bed.....

Let them eat gorse.....

Just before the day ended, rain stopped and a brief, low sun came out. Up on Stonechat Hill , over the rust of shadowed bracken, old wilding apple trees fanned out. Silver birches shone tall and white, topped with their deep red canopies of twigs against grey clouds.

A single, lime green splash of mistletoe survived in a lichen covered tree.

Up in the gorse, a distant flash of white tossed from left to right. An old grey pony pulled at sweet young gorse with her sharp, worn down teeth.

Her friend, tucked deep into a thicket, was finding the tenderest shoots to eat.

The bright bay mare chewed and chomped, her back steaming dry in the sun after hours of rain but her belly still streaked wet with mud.

Hunger sated, the younger grey dozed in a patch of sunlight.

Concentration, finding the best new flowers and shoots to prune and chew.

The pale dun mare called Fudge, now almost full grown, tucked her head into the undergrowth as she ground down the sharp, green gorse between back teeth.

Leaving the ponies feeding wild on the hill, Old Dog was allowed off his lead and sprang away free. He ran down the lane to sniff and weave along pathways of invisible scent, under the trees where fox and badger pass in the Forest night.

"Lines Written in Early Spring" by William Wordsworth

On a mild spring day in England, crocuses shine back at the sun and violas show shy faces to the wet, green garden. Songbirds are pairing and singing in the hedgerow trees.

Across a continent, there is revolution stirring. The people of the Middle East are waking from years in the thrall of autocratic leaders. Despots have been shaken from power, although some cling on in violent desperation. Tonight there is bloodshed in Libya. There are reports of anti tank weapons being fired at pro democracy demonstrators. "Economical" weapons that can kill three men with one shell. Hundreds are dead. There may be worse to come.

Over two hundred years ago, William Wordsworth was a young man caught up in the idealism and the excitement of the early days of the French Revolution. Later, by the spring of 1798, he had witnessed and fled the bloodshed of The Terror. He had learned that idealism can come with a terrible cost. His poem, written that spring, could have been written today.

Lines Written in Early Spring

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreathes;

And `tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breaths.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature`s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

William Wordsworth (1798)

Hellebores and a Winter Sunset

Down in a shady corner of the garden, the Lenten Hellebores have suddenly come into flower.

They sometimes bow their heads, so that you have to lift a flower with careful fingers , to see the delicate patterning of tiny spots against a white petal, or to find soft, blushing colours hidden underneath.

I kept the camera in my pocket as I worked in the fields this evening. Just as I turned to leave, the sky turned from blue and salmon pink to deep, glowing orange behind the trees.