Early Spring in Dorset

A soft light reflected in the wings of the morning, as dawn broke into the east with a breeze blowing gently that seemed almost balmy after the long cold winter of dark nights, particles of white glinting, moonlit after a cascade of snow chilled the frost-bitten air. The breeze shimmered the tips of the trees as the eastern sky dappled itself into the waiting day & shivered ripples on the river, moving in a breaths glimmer of movement, like ducks gliding silently through the dark water. It had been rather a cool night, with the moon's shadow creeping across the garden, until dawn danced on the surface of the river, glancing off the ripples until the reflections of the trees impaled themselves on the water. The sun slowly crept from the eastern clouds & glowed pink & yellow upon the hills, throwing the small valleys into a misty morning haze that softened the woodland pine trees into a blur of quiet green. The morning's dewy grass glistened like jewels, catching the rising sun & sparkled its way across the fields as the early spring moved steathily into the day with a fresh breeze sighing in the willow tree.
Birds sang the morning brighter as they hopped in & out of the copper beech tree, chirping & twittering with the sunbeams slowly encroaching upon the newness of the spring day, adorning the fresh green buds that appeared along the stems of the hawthorn in the hedgerows. Blue tits & robins pecked around the garden near the purple, yellow & white crocuses that had pushed up through the new grass. Many varieties of daffodils joined them in large quantities & smothered the bank with yellows & whites that bordered the garden from the field next door. Soon the bluebells would carpet the woodlands with wall to wall blue, the cuckoo knock on the tree trunk & call, echoing in the valley. Church bells pealed from across the hill, ringing out another Sunday in the village.
Ewes were dropping their lambs in twos & threes in wet covered bundles onto the sloping field of spring & suckled them from milk-filled udders. Soon they tottered about, fast gaining strength in their solid little legs, their bodies still unfattened & thin with a hint of curly wool. During the day, the lambs gathered together in groups, dashing around the field before suddenly stopping & doing the same in the other direction, then return to the ewes & sometimes climb on their backs.
The farmers had been busy muck-spreading, preparing the ground before ploughing & now the tractors trundle up & down the fields sowing seed to grow tall, ripening in the summer sun before the autumn's harvest of mist & mellowness.
Yellow primroses scattered in clumps around the lanes & banks of the hedgerows, with the appearance of wood anemone down by the river. Days of new growth burst from the ground with shoots young & tender appearing in the rockery. Fresh young buds sprang forth in the borders & the sap rose in the apple trees, with pink & white blossom along their boughs happy in the warmth of spring's birth. Tiny blue flowers would emerge from the aubrietia hanging over the stone wall, saxifrage spreading in the rockery. The lanes soon accommodating lady smock, the cow parsley & nettles rising lush & green, spilling onto the roadside in May. Wild garlic spread on the river banks & hid among the tall new grass.
Soon the days would lengthen even more, the sun dipping into a long twilight, while the owls hunt over the fields of Dorset, the badgers in their setts roaming the woodlands in the darkness of the night.