White Fields and Footprints

In the cold grey morning, a thin, slushy layer of snow lay over the fields.

Rabbits left sets of footprints, each resembling the tortured face in Munch`s painting The Scream .

Bird prints scattered over field and garden.........

....where a fox had trotted over to the fence and wriggled underneath.

Oak branches topped with snow.

Out in the lane, a "snow stilt" had fallen from the hollow of a Forest pony`s hoof.

A scattering of snow lay on hawthorn twigs, on bracken....

........and on flowering gorse.

A bleak, cold heath........

....where a group of ponies walked, so carefully, towards a gorse thicket and the chance of young shoots for breakfast.

The young grey mare will be five years old this spring. She was born on the Forest and still lives with her mother and a familiar family group.

She is the half sister of our own Grey One........

...who was breakfasting in more comfort beyond the field hedge.

Jay, his friend, followed me around, still chewing his morning hay, while I photographed footprints in the snow.

Woody was alert and watching in the still, white fields.

In the garden, camelias festooned with snow had browned and frozen in the cold morning.

Later, the thaw began. Water dripped off trees and rooftops all afternoon, but there is still frozen snow on the fields tonight, under a bright winter moon.

The New "Grandcats"!

Grandcats....is there such a word?

There must be as I have just become the Cats` Grandmother!

Last week, our elder son and his partner adopted two lovely cats, so we drove over to see them at the weekend. The cats are two brothers who are around a year old. Their previous owners reluctantly had to find them a new home as circumstances caused them to move house into the centre of a town, to a rented house where pets were not allowed.

Since their arrival, the two new Boys have been neutered and microchipped. Despite a day of feeling a bit sore, they have settled in well. They are sweet natured cats who are happy to be picked up or to sit on a lap. At night, they sleep curled up together and they groom each other at least once a day. The Boys have kept their old names. They have had enough changes to deal with for now.

We took them a pair of toy catnip mice as a welcome present. Figgy, the black and white boy, was more interested in his new bed, which provides very good camouflage. He still has a scratch on his nose from a fight with a neighbouring Tom cat in his old garden.

The Boys will not go outside into their new garden for at least two weeks. When they do, they will have butter put on their paws in time-honoured fashion. That trick has always worked with our cats. By the time they have licked off the butter, the new garden feels like home!

Here is Gizzy, who is a a soft, pale fawn colour rather than the strong ginger of our own Ginger Man.

He rushed about, chasing his catnip mouse and having a wonderful play around the chair legs......

.....and then a good wash was needed after all that exercise.

Thawing Out

In the middle of the morning, hoar frost still clung to leaf and bracken frond as we set off for a walk around the hill.

The bird bath, in a shaded corner of the garden, was still a solid disc of ice.

Out on the heath, the thaw had begun, but shadowed bracken still crunched frozen underfoot.

I found the old hidden clump of mistletoe in a hawthorn tree.

A group of ponies breakfasted on young gorse shoots.

The uphill lane was shaded. Puddles were criss-crossed with shafts of ice.

From the hilltop, mist rose from the wet, thawing heath and the lane snaked away towards the village road.

A little band of young Forest ponies rested in a sunny spot. One of them stood beside her companions, alert and on the lookout. The others dozed in the quiet morning at the edge of the wood.

Rainbow Monday

An ordinary Monday afternoon. People in the supermarket car park looked up from their mundane tasks to see a perfect rainbow reaching its arc behind the trees, over the valley of the River Avon beyond. Total strangers exclaimed with awe and stopped in their tracks, talking to each other and pointing out the rainbow to those who were looking the other way. One or two cameras came out to catch the moment.

As I drove home along back lanes the bow of the rainbow faded, but I seemed to be following one end of it into the Forest. The colours deepened and the rainbow`s end thickened as it hovered over a hill. I stopped the car and found my camera again. Within minutes, the colours had softened and disappeared into the grey air.

Closer....

The small bright shapes on the hill were a group of New Forest ponies, grazing in the brown heather.

Behind me, the sun shone light beams from behind a mass of dark cloud. A weather front moved in from the Channel coast during the evening , bringing a night of rain.

A Wander Through Winter Trees

Monday dawned with the land covered in a deep white frost. I waited for the sun to heat the air before Old Dog and I ventured out for a walk. These days, as he becomes slower, we wander more than walk.

Out on the heath, Jennie`s tree, the old wilding crab apple with deep red fruit, held just a few tiny apples on its bare branches. One had fallen to the grass beneath.

Fronds of lichen on its twigs and branches.

Old Dog, looking frail, enjoyed a sniff at the frosty bracken. A few moments later he was walking with a brisk step along the path, with his tail in the air and a keen, alert expression on his face.

Silver birch.......

....a wilding apple that produces bright green fruit enjoyed by Forest cattle.........

... and a lichen covered ash.

One of the wilding trees that produces the loveliest blossom, at the foot of the hill where oak, beech, silver birch and holly grow beside the old coaching lane.

Frost on oak leaves in a dried-up, shaded puddle.

Cattle had passed by in the night.

Along the lane, a log remained from a tree that fell in recent gales..........

....and the understory of the woods was littered with snapped branches after high winds.

Old Dog looked out for a Jack Russell terrier who lives in a cottage that we pass. His friend was not at home.

Oak buds against a cold blue sky...........

....and catkins in a garden, bringing hopes of spring.