After continuous heavy rain yesterday and overnight, this morning was largely overcast but dry when Jackie and I took an early forest drive.
While we queued at the Brockenhurst level crossing we were able to
see to our left evidence of a recently felled wide arboreal casualty.
Having driven under the A31 to Newbridge Jackie was forced to pull over to the verge as we came face to face with a hay bale carried by a
tractor on the narrow lane ahead.
There was already a stream flowing under a road bridge alongside Furzley Common, but today it was overflowing and bubbling as it splashed over a mossy bank that revealed exposed tree roots having received water’s erosive force for many years. The fifth, portrait, image in the gallery demonstrates a broken tree’s determination to regenerate. New ferns find themselves growing in water.
Marsh marigolds, otherwise known as kingcups, blended with yellow flag irises.
I was surprised that sheep grazing on the common, normally such inquisitive creatures, did a runner when I squelched across the soggy sward past long term decaying stumps in order to make their portraits.
Soon afterwards we encountered a foal attached to assorted shapes and sizes of ponies. It enjoyed licking the tarmac and scratching an itch, although hadn’t yet learned the technique of using a hoof for such relief.
Jackie photographed me in action, the various ponies, including the foal who wanted to enter the Modus, and another with its Dam further along the road.
Frisky lambs nipped across the road at Bramshaw to join an adult on the other side who
soon crossed back to where they had come from;
naturally they followed suit.
Here are Jackie’s three pictures of the sheep.
This evening we all dined on Jackie’s spicy penne pasta arrabbiata with parmesan cheese and tender green beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Bardolino.