Growing up

The highland calf was last blipped here on the day she was born in the big Redhills pasture beneath the Knott. She's nearly six months old now with a mop that Boris Johnson would be happy with, and fetching sparsely tufted ears. I've resisted going back to photograph her development so as to spare Gus the ticks that are uncomfortably numerous in the field. They seem less abundant at this time of the year, and so long as we don't stay in one place long enough for Gus to lie down, we get away with it.

Indeed, a tick bite could be quite nasty for me at the moment. Four weeks ago, just after the end of the chemotherapy, I had a massive allergic reaction to the usually quite benign harvest mites which are ubiquitous in grassland here (including our garden). 4 weeks on I still have an angry looking red lump on my leg.

On happier subjects, every time I have been outside today there have been noisy skeins of pink-footed geese flying overhead, including one of 70-80 that flew high directly over the house heading south.