THE SCENE CHANGES

Today, after a night of hail turning to rain, during which we stayed safely indoors hiding away from all that the current weather could throw at us, we woke to dry skies!

The family whose chickens & rabbits I had to care for over the week had had a reasonably  sunny, fun time and enjoyed their half term holiday in the sunnier climes of Spain. They arrived safely back last night, only to be met with the vagaries of our local weather. As you can see there were still remnants of snow, hail, frozen stuff on the mountain.

As you can see above, an oak leaf blown by these wintry winds had blown from miles away, had to come to rest on the sphagnum mosses on the mountain where ice crystals had not yet melted. But amazingly the ambient temperature was surprisingly mild.

And in a field of a local, recently regenerated farm, different sheep.

These are the  Balwen breed, normally a pure white, mid to lowland breed, but somewhere in a throw back in the genes, a darker offspring appeared.  

The rest of the flock were studiously grazing with their backs turned to me.

In the fields behind, the hardier breeds of Wesh Mountain and Texel sheep.

Meanwhile ....

on the commons ... fresh sheep droppings on a rosette of thistle leaves ... ? 

This indicated to me that there were still sheep loose on the mountain.

Also in the muddy areas, there were distinctive sheep hoof prints ...

Talking to a local farmer in the pub at lunch time ,

he had gathered some of his last missing sheep off the common grazing land.

Today, finally the weather began to clear ....

 

but for how much longer?