Little Boy Blue,
Come blow on your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow
The cow's in the corn.
Where's the boy
Who looks after the sheep?
He's under a haystack
Fast asleep.
Will you wake him?
No not I,
For if I do
He'll be sure to cry.
I'm brushing up my nursery rhyme repertoire.
You never know when you're going to need a diversionary ditty
with a little one about the house.
But I may have to rewrite this.
We've got quite used to
The ponies on the footpath eating bracken -
but
The cow's* in deep woodland eating ivy?
Where is Little Boy Blue when you need him?
*These are British White cattle,
one of the oldest breeds of cattle in Britain
with direct links to the ancient indigenous wild white cattle.
They thrive on poor pasture, rough vegetation and heathland
and have been brought in to help manage a coastal nature reserve.
cows eat ivy?
ReplyDeleteI have 3 bags full.
You've reminded me of this song:
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairzy_Doats
I don't know any English nursery rhymes.
ReplyDeleteDo you know some Welsh ones?
DeleteNo I don't, we didn't have them. We had poems and hymns.
DeleteLucille, thank you for reminding me of that poem I learned long, long ago.
ReplyDeleteThank you also for the photographs of the ponies and the white cows, doing their bit for our beautiful world. The next time I get over to your side of the Atlantic, I might need to refresh my memory of what bracken actually is. I know I have seen it, but my memory is foggy. Those cows are such beautiful animals. Where had they been nibbling before being brought to this nature researve?
There is something about your photograph of the cows that reminds me of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Is that another of my foggy memories?
I think your pictures are both very beautiful and they definitely feed my country dreams. xo
Like you say - strange to see cows in woodland - it doesn't seem right somehow. Makes a nice picture though.
ReplyDeleteCows in woodland is where they should be isn't it, they didn't always just eat grass......
ReplyDeleteI thought bracken was poisonous . Come to that , I wouldn't have recommended ivy as part of Buttercup's Five A Day , either .
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I thought it was 'come blow up your horn', which doesn't make sense but is what I have been saying for years.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter loves Spike Milligan poems, they are worth looking at.
Lovely to see such an old breed of cattle and hear a little about them.
ReplyDeleteWood pasture is very common in Surrey, the most densely wooded county in England. The Dexters (small, black, almost cuddly cows) are back on the wooded common next to my allotment, clearing the summer growth. But the prize for top herbivore round here goes to the Belted Galloways who hoover up almost everything growing on the steep escarpments of the North Downs.
ReplyDeleteI could do with some of these cows in my garden. We are currently engaged in Ivy War, and the result is so far inconclusive.
ReplyDelete