Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

10 April

This is the third day of heavy mist.  It hangs damply over the trees and fields, hugging the contours of the earth.  Pink blossom stands out against the grey.  There is no air movement.  All sound is muffled.  In the distance, the low-toned explosion from a bird-scarer sounds baffled and shortened – like a small cannon with a sock in its mouth.  My neighbour’s Hebridean lambs, whose enthusiasm for life is not dampened by the weather, skip and butt each other as their mothers munch hay from the feeder.

Millie and I pass close by an enormous pile of cow muck – it must be 50m long.  It is organic manure for the fallow field.  Steam rises slowly from it and merges with the mist.  I like the smell – it reminds me working on the farm as a child.  It is reminiscent of the scent of the potato fields in Autumn, when the crop was harvested.  Mud and rotting potato tops.  It’s funny what can be comforting and familiar.

Beyond the heap, I spy two hares.  They have appeared from the grass bank beside the lane and are chasing and stopping, then chasing again.  Another courtship dance, no doubt.

All text & images ©2018 Carol Saunderson

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