Just to set the scene a little - we're amongst the clouds today. The first picture suggests a reasonably fair day - a bit of cloud drifts decoratively across the conifers of Badnage Wood. The reality is more like the picture to the right, mist winds between the trees and hangs heavily amongst the branches. Strangely I don't find it in the least bit oppressive - the ever changing swirls and eddys are mesmeric. The picture is never the same.
However it is wet out there and the driving rain which accompanies this atmospheric landscape urges one to seek the comforts of Inside By The Fire.
Hens, of course, do not think like this* - they're out there getting on with being hens and today they're getting wetter by the hour.
Rain has transformed their normally plump be-feathered bodies into scrawny torsos. Their urgent scratchings have made a muddy patch out of a grassy pen. Mud oozes through boney feet. But, hey, these girls don't mind! 4 eggs today. Cluck! Cluck!
Indoors, dogs have taken to their beds or loll with backs against the Aga. This brown one would quite happily be Out, nose to the wind. Weather? What's weather? 'Out' is the thing. Scenting, drawing in the stories told by the breeze and snuffling down amongst wet grass. Scents that are mousepheasantmolevole and racing into the rain with a long and elegant stride. There is joy in running and thrill in the chase.
But today is for by the fire - and fires are for feeble humans who also wish this cursed rain would stop.
* Do hens think? Discuss.
2 comments:
And the white dog?
No doubt staring apprehensively at a bin liner or something.
Possibly.
He's OK but has taken to gnawing at his feet somewhat obsessively. I keep thinking I'll come down one day and discover he has only 3 legs, a satisfied expression and a full belly.
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