sheep in snow
It is Winter. The landscape around us is covered with snow and it is freezing. The sheep are well prepared to endure the hardships of Winter. The thick woollen fleece they wear protects them against the cold. When they are resting they lie in the snow even at night. But it is much more difficult for them to find sufficient food. So I feed them hay every day now. The sheep are gourmets. They first are nosing around the hay and carefully pick the most tasteful pieces. In the meadow I left many branches of cutted pollard willows. The sheep are fond of it. They peel the bast of the branches and eat the thin twigs at the end of the branches. In the summer sun my sheep look very white but in winter their colour changes and looks light yellow against the background of the snow. In the Victorian nineteenth century English landscape painters loved the look of sheep in the snow. Sir Ernest Albert Waterlow (1850-1919) was one of them. He made many romantic paintings of farming life in the rural areas. He was knighted for it in 1902.