Thought for the day . . .

It has thawed here, praise be. Yesterday was so much warmer and now all but the most stubborn ice has melted. The ponds are looking very milky but the ice is slowly darkening at the edges and the birds can drink more readily again.

In last week's Telegraph, I came across this wonderfully inspiring piece of text, which is one that adventurer and explorer Ben Fogle lives by:

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To believe is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

The people who risk nothing, do nothing.

Only a person who risks is truly free.



I will leave you with that thought . . .

Some thaw!

It's supposed to be thawing, according to OH. The weather forecast says we are probably up to 8 deg. here outside in the day, and around freezing at night. Hmmm. Someone obviously left the Cothi Valley out of the equation because look at this - it has got VERY MUCH colder and the river is freezing over. OH and I walked down by the river just as it was getting dimpsey last night. We had already noticed it feeling colder up by the house, but as you walk down our hill, you can feel a considerable temperature drop and the river was noticably starting to cool as there were little rafts of ice coming downstream.

We walked down again this morning, to be greeted by these sights. Thaw - you have to be JOKING!


Even where the water is rougher, ice has formed at the edges and the water rushes beneath it.

View upstream from the bridge showing where the ice always forms first, by the rocks.

View from the bridge downstream. . .

The really telling picture, showing little ice floes coming downstream, and fetching up at the side of the river.

This is the little fast-flowing stream which joins the river here - already with huge chunks of ice forming over it.

Kittenses

Grumpy mama Miffy.



My daughters have told me off because I am not blogging often enough about the kittens. They are a good 7 months old now - young cats rather than kittens of course - and gradually adapting to a dual life as part house cats (at night in this bitter weather) and mostly outside cats, but more than that, they are Foodies. They love to eat. It shows. Especially on Fatty (aka Jarvis) who is like a little barrel on legs (short ones at that!)

If I put food outside for Miffy (mama cat), they are there liked greased lightening, so I try and feed her now before and after they spend the night in the shower room. That way she gets a decent meal and she needs it more than they do, as she lives in the outbuildings of the farm. I hope she has found the barn, with its hay and straw, where Amber lives.

Mind you, they are good at Takeaways - as you will see from these photographs. Sometimes it's mum catching it, and they takeitaway. Or sometimes one of them has a lucky moment and the others try and grab the poor vole off the hunter.

I would like to say there was a happy outcome from these photos, but sadly for the vole, it got scoffed!

Anyway, our darling boys have wormed their way into our hearts and it is hard to imagine life without them. They are so easy going and MUCH easier than the rag and tag we have - Lucky/Lucy/Fluff are far too quick with their claws. I've never had cats who were like that until Lucky turned up and presented us with kittens, many years ago now. It's obviously something which is line bred through her.

Anyway, here are some pre-freeze photos of the boys hunting. Tippy was Doing Other Things Elsewhere by the look of things.


Now you've done it - it's gone under there . . .

Can you see it? Nope . . .

I'm sure I heard a rustle here in the leaves . . .

You take the front, I'll cover the back . . .

Have you got it?

I'm not interested in it now - it tastes yukky!

'Smine!! You can't have it!

Kittenses

A Wintery walk

Another new kid on the block. This is Eric the Red. Anther young tom, who seems to tolerate the Three Muskateers (that's Alfie and Tippy just in the picture).


There was another hard frost this morning and many of the trees and bushes were blasted with a white rime of hoar frost. I've not walked up the hill since this bad weather has been with us - mainly because I didn't want to meet up with anything larger than me on 4 wheels sliding in my direction! Up in the canyon part of the hill, there is nowhere to go!

The views were wonderful, and you could tell which bits of the valley caught the sun first, for they were green, and the valley bottom and eastern slopes were white and shadowed still. I got quite warm in the sunshine, and was surprised to find that I am still fitter than I gave myself credit for. My pulse was about 75 as I climbed the steep bit of the hill, returning to 63 after a minute's rest. Going downhill later, it was around the 64 mark. My resting pulse is something ridiculous like 40!

Looking across the paddock this morning as the sun rose over the hills.

Climbing the hill and looking across towards Court Henry.

The frost on these twigs looks like snow blossom.

This is my favourite, apart from the out of focus bit in the left corner. The shadows on the slope make up for it though.

Looking towards the Towy Valley.

Black Mountain under snow.

You can just make out Dryslwyn Castle in the centre.

This fox was desperate for food - he was hoping he would turn up a tasty vole as he hunted across our field.

Red sky at morning . . .

Shepherd's (or sailor's if you live near the sea) warning . . . How right it was yesterday!

The photo was taken from my office window. We were barely able to step outside to ttake photos, as the rain on top of freezing-cold ground, had turned to a thick slick of ice overnight. Even the tractors and landrovers of Next Door were unable to move an inch. A slick of ice covered everything, even these rocks on the top of the wall beside the front gate. I think he must have got his cattle in, finally, as the poor creatures were in free-fall coming down a steep icy trackway from the field the previous evening. They were standing at the top of the slope, obviously a bit worried about proceeding, and then they would begin to glide down. It looked really funny, but of course, was quite serious as several fell and could easily have been deadstock.

This was what faced us yesterday - ignore the slight thaw with water - it was the blardy Cresta Run. We had to VERY carefully take dolly steps to negotiate the lane as far as the gritting box, only to find that the "grit" (in actual fact, duff with a little salt added) was frozen solid and we couldn't stand upright to even put the little we could chip out across the road.

Below, is Next Door's yard - a bovine ice rink . . .

Of course, all the workers in the household had to phone in and say they were stranded. They were not alone. Listening to local radio, people were phoning in and one lady said under no circumstances attempt to drive down Allt-y-Cnap hill at Johnstown as she had just gone into free-fall down it, sideways all the way down, with a car behind her doing the same. The story was a similar one across the county, and the Kidwelly road was shut all day because of a multi-vehicle pile-up . . .


A thick layer of ice covered everything, leaving the grass looking like seaweed . . .


This was the path just outside the front door . . .

Today we "just" have freezing fog.

I have been throwing out frozen apples for the blackbirds - we have upwards of 20 in the garden at any one time, pecking at the small apples which we left on the tree for just this sort of weather (though we didn't expect it so early).

Off to make soup and more bread . . .

Down by the river

I went for a walk down along the river with my husband yesterday, to get some exercise. We've had no further snow since last Friday, but it has been BITTERLY cold, as you can see from the river. Our eldest daughter and her boyfriend are currently stuck up in Sheffield, snowbound, so we hope they will get home tomorrow though trains are looking dodgy at the moment.

Still, this amount of freezing isn't a patch on last winter's, when only a narrow strip of river remained unfrozen and still moving . . .