DIVING DOG.

As promised, I took the daft dog for a swim in one of my favourite places, an old mining valley.  Despite much "Googling" information on this area is sparse and confusing. From what I can gather, mining began here before 1820 but this chimney was built around 198o. Apparently major landslips in 1860 & 1861 "engulfed the Cwm Byrgwm mine, amazingly no-one was hurt." Today as you will see, evidence of the mining activity here still remain, but back to the mad mutt's clean off. The water here is clear and used to be a haven for tadpoles & newts. Sadly last year, it totally dried out and today there were few signs of water life, apart from diving dog making a splash.

He just loves to dive headlong into the water, then races round the edge of the pool, back to me.
Having dived in several times, I felt he was now clean enough and what better way than leaf diving. The hillside behind the pool is dominated by beech trees and last years leaves are gathered in a deep hollow. In today's sun, they were crunchy and dry, ideal for some fun. Ffin just loves diving into deep drifts of beech leaves ...

the deeper the better and in this hollow in the hillside they pile up almost two feet, so his ball gets buried and he has to nose through them all to find it. So that's the first part of the post swim grooming and getting him dried off. The next bit is to go along a path now almost overgrown with bracken which for me is over my shoulder high and almost hides the sheep.

Alarmed by the rustling in undergrowth, these four took to higher ground and watched us watching them in the lovely warm sunshine. The best part of this natural grooming is that the mad mutt, gets brushed and his coat looks glossy and smells much more aromatic than it did before his swim. Up above us the high rock faces are home to several buzzards and the adults ride the thermals with ease, whilst the young ones are learning fast. It is hard now to imagine what it must have looked like during the time it was a working mine, but the scars still remain despite natures best efforts to reclaim this long lasting damage.The slag heaps are very slow to recover.

But nature, will eventually win. Already this area, without artificial regeneration planting is becoming a haven for all sorts of natural vegetation, encouraging mammal  and avian activity. This is still a part of the commons land, hence the free ranging sheep, but despite the ravages of mining it is a peaceful, lovely area to walk and we love this scarred land.