The Dorset Shepherd

I had to drive to Dorchester again today and this is where I was determined to find an idea for a blip!

The Dorset Shepherd is a sculpture by internationally known John Doubleday (his works can be seen in South Africa, Singapore, Trieste, Bombay, Beijing, Jersusalem etc) and was commissioned to commemorate the Millennium as "a tribute to the quiet heroism and wisdom of pastoralists and cultivators who provide inspiration for the literary tradition associated with Dorchester." The inspiration for this figure came from a poem by William Barnes (1801-1886), the Dorset Dialect poet, entitled The Shepherd of the Farm. Beside the shepherd leaning on his crook and his dog is a plaque with the following verse by Barnes:

An' I do bide all day among
The bleaten sheep, an' pitch their vwold.
An' when the evenen sheades be long
Do zee all a-penn'd an' twold.

There was an auction of hay bales on the farm today. It was fairly successful. Then N and T were splitting logs and loading the bucket of the Manitou with them to take under cover to dry out.