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Friday 8 March 2013

Sings of Spring on Scout Hill

scout hill standing stone

I’m willing to bet that not a vast number of people will have climbed Scout Hill – unless they’re a HuMP bagger having a break from the madhouse on the M6 and on their way to somewhere else, or a local Luptonite, or the shepherd who has the sheep….

Its quite a nice hill and has one of those lovely radio /repeater mast thingies on the top, as well as a trig point and a standing stone.

not a very good pic of a primrose

lambing fields

Me and the bro and superdawg did a seven (ish) mile gentle (ish) trundle around Scout Hill and the lambing fields of Lupton. Lambing seems fairly early here, its not really in full flow back home in the Pennines. Its nice to see gangs of lambs chasing each other around the fields, though and, as well as the snowdrops, there was a single primrose in a sheltered lane and the hawthorn has the very first new green leaves just sprouting and, superdawg’s ears were sticking up as he ran about daft in the stockless pastures. 

lonesome pine

sticky up ears

I try to avoid taking the dog into lambing fields, and any field containing sheep, specially those with coloured bums is generally to be avoided if possible.  For the next few weeks and until the lambs are robust and charging about, its not a good idea to introduce a daft bugger like Bruno into these places. There’s a really good case here for a more reasonable approach to the use of public footpaths. It would be much better for all concerned if walkers could just legally go around – like wot they do in Scotland, in fact. English access legislation doesn’t really allow for people to act reasonably

So – signs of spring.  And there’s cold and snow forecast for the next few days. Lambing showers perhaps…?

 

6 comments:

Laura said...

Thought I heard a funny noise.....

John J said...

Just got home from a bimble around Alderley Edge. Not many lambs around.....plenty of Chelsea Tractors and Hooray Henries, but a lack of lambs.
Bah.
JJ
PS: Hello Laura!

Al said...

Close to the homestead for me this one Mike...a surprisingly wild feeling piece of land round them tha pines.
Felt perishin on the way into work in Kendal this morning. I think spring has been put on hold!
Enjoy your trip to Welsh wales!!

AlanR said...

That certainly looks a very pleasant outing. No fog either.

Yasmine said...

As a new dog owner, I think you're spot on about needing to be able to go round land that the farmer would rather you didn't go through. Up in Weardale the usually tame sheep are starting to pay more attention to my young collie, and it's not easy to find fields that don't contain sheep at the moment. Life was much less complicated before Holly happened to me!

Mark said...

I've often thought about climbing Scout Hill, since we can see it from some of our windows, but I've always been put off by the access issue. Maybe this year, one night after work.....