New arrivals.

There were new arrivals on Monday as ewes and lambs came to spend their winter in our fields.  We are about six hundred feet above sea level here, but of course that is nothing compared with the top pasture grass high above the Buttertubs Pass in Swaledale, which is where these sheep have spent their summer.   Hefted sheep, they have enjoyed their fill of the moorland grass throughout the Summer, but at that height the grass is already stopping its growth and the sheep have largely nibbled it all away.  

The farmer has just been on his morning walk with Tess and the sun is just up and low in the sky.  I asked him to take a photograph for me.  The sheep are rather distant, but on the other hand it does show our pastures and the trees which have not yet begun to shed their leaves.

Cattle which came from the same farmer to spend
their Summer with us, are still here and show up nicely in the low morning sun.