Dogs Just Want To Have Fun!

B Baggins is great friends with my friend P's dog Bertie and on Saturday afternoon we took them up on Blackamoor just as the snow was starting.

It was very cold and there was ice on parts of the track. I spotted this little ice bridge between the two rocks in the stream, you might need to enlarge the photo to see it.

None of the photos are very good because the dogs were way ahead, it was snowing and I was snapping as we walked. B Baggins hasn't featured much lately though so I decided to post them anyway.

There were big chunky icicles along the river bank.

The ice cold water didn't seem to bother Bertie and B Baggins, P and I skipped across the stepping stones though.

Bracken fronds encased in ice.

Heading for home! Bertie is a lurcher and very fast indeed - you can just see him disappearing round the bend in the lane:)

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited ;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.


This poem by Thomas Hardy seems very appropriate for the present weather, Old Man Winter has come to remind us that he isn't finished with us just yet. The photographs are mine apart from the songthrush which I've borrowed from the web - a small local nature blog called Westfield Life

I think Hardy must have written this poem at about this time of year, he certainly sounds as though he's had enough of the winter:) The very cold clear weather does have its positive side however, we have had some beautiful daybreaks and sunrises - I only wish I could manage to take a halfway decent photograph of one of them - this is the best I've managed so far taken a couple of days ago at the bottom of Shorts Lane.

A Winter Walk

B Baggins and I went down Shorts Lane and onto Blackamoor this morning, there were grey skies and a cold wind blowing. I saw the farmer ploughing this field in the autumn and now it has a new crop growing - barley I suspect if it's the same as last year.

I don't think the farmer will be very pleased to see these little heaps of soil! Moldy Warp the Mole has been busy by the looks of it. Does anyone else love the Little Grey Rabbit books by Alison Uttley - Moldy Warp is one of the characters from these delightful stories. I have only ever seen one mole and that was a dead one kindly deposited on the back porch by my wonderful old cat Raffles - now long gone across the Rainbow Bridge. It was totally undamaged and must have died of shock I think. It was a lovely little creature with the most beautiful fur. I was very sad about it's death and after I'd told him off Raffles was very sad too! I apologize for the poor quality of the photograph, I tried several times and this is the best of a very bad lot.

These old moss covered dry stone walls give me pleasure every time I walk past them. It's sad that so many of them are poorly maintained these days. Dry stone walling as a country craft is definitely reviving but it's very expensive to employ someone to repair walls. In the old days the farm labourers would have had the skill to do such jobs in the winter months. My dad had this skill along with several others including being able to use a sickle. Judging by the rabbits that came home in his capacious pockets I suspect he had some skill as a poacher too!

B Baggins investigating the various scents in the grass verge, apart from other dogs there are horses,foxes,rabbits and badgers around here. There's a large badger sett close by and in the early summer I'm going to go at dusk without B Baggins and see if I can watch them for a while.

Even in the depths of winter, when everything looks lifeless at first glance, there are signs of life if you look for them, these are fresh young nettle leaves emerging in a sheltered spot protected by a high bank from the icy winds that come whistling down off the moors.

After the snow melt and a couple of nights of heavy rain Blacka Dyke is looking pretty lively, it sounded as though it was having fun as it raced merrily along.

This stone plaque has appeared very recently and will weather nicely into its surroundings I think. Although we have Alderman Graves to thank for giving Blackamoor to the people of Sheffield he hadn't actually owned it for very long. It was bought from the Duke of Rutland in 1927 when the Longshaw Estate was sold.

Thick stems of ivy twisting round the branch of this tree. This doesn't, contrary to common belief, strangle the tree. Ivy has its own root system and simply uses trees for support in the same way that a climbing rose does. I speak with the authority of the Royal Horticultural Society behind me:) Ivy has great value for wildlife. As ground cover in woodland it greatly lessens the effect of frost, enabling birds and woodland creatures to forage in leaf litter during bitter spells. Growing on trees, it provides hiding, roosting, hibernating and nesting places for various animals, birds and insects (including butterflies), especially during the winter months and in areas where there are few other evergreens.

Even in this wintry landscape there is some colour, the reddish brown of the dead bracken fronds adds some warmth to the scene and the green of the moss cheers things up too.

This is where I often cross over Blacka Dyke via the stepping stones and climb up to Lenny Hill, from there you can take several routes depending on how far you want to walk. Today though I stayed on this side of the river and walked further up into the woodland area. No photos though as this is also where my camera instructed me to 'Change Batteries' and I hadn't brought any spares!