Around the Farm

February

The hen harrier is back. He comes when the sky is heavy and grey and a north breeze brings the scent of snow. He glides low and languidly over our high ground, scanning the heaths and dormant grasslands for life beneath the winter thatch, cool and dazzling, brilliant white against the dusky, golden moor grass and dark green and graphite of the hill. There is snow on the hills west of us. Semi-frozen mud crunches underfoot and the air is damp and chill. The kind of damp chill that bites at your toes and seeps into your bones, with a breeze that whips at your face.