Across paths made by hooves and the tracks of badgers

Early and before the noise makers arrive we headed off and up and over the hill, and the farmyard was full of mud.

Excited sheep watched as we passed, lambs fat with early spring grass. We were hunting for violets.

On the wall where the violets grow we found none yet, but the dull light made our orange coats glow like the heart of a fire.

The wind was rising as we climbed to the top, new low growing gorse harsh beneath our paws, low cloud, beautiful, like the sheen on old, neglected pearls.

No buds show yet on the twisted weave of the hawthorn tree, planted a century ago by a bird, in a cleft in the rock.

The path home was worn wide, not by the feet of the two legs for few walk here this time of year, but by the small hooves of wild ponies. The ponies are round as round and we wait and watch for the first small foal.