About 3 weeks ago, in the waning afternoon sun, I took a drive south on Route 9 into Kennebunkport. There is a sheep farm on the land rising up from the estuarial marshy area along the shore. Every year, I look to see if they have any new lambs I can ogle. I had seen some before and hoped they were close enough for me to photograph. Well, I had no luck, but I took pictures anyway.
I think the view is looking to the southeast standing on the side of the road (Route 9). The Atlantic Ocean is out there…not too far out. If you were looking on a map you would see Goose Rocks Beach. I love the rocky hillside. I’ve lived in a flatland state, and I so missed hilly, rocky terrain!
Some days, the sheep are on this little slope, right by the road, and that’s where I hoped they’d be, ready to have their portraits made. But I guess they were feeling, you know, sheepish. (Sorry)
A closer look at the barn seen in first pic. And those wonderful craggy, lichenous, moss-covered boulders heaving up out of the hillside.
Isn’t a glorious barn? The afternoon sun is lighting it nicely, despite the patchy, low-hanging clouds. Love that hanging, sliding door, and the transom window above to let in the afternoon glow. I bet it smells sweet like hay inside. And a little dusty.
Those massive granite blocks make an excellent retaining wall to keep the earthen approach to the side door from wearing away.
On the south side of the barn, looking north.
This gate in the stone wall makes me think of the Yorkshire farms described in James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small books. Have you read any of the series? Or seen the BBC shows?
Waste not, want not. Yankee thrift dictates that this old iron tub makes a good watering trough. Can you see the sheep in the far pasture?
This was as close as I could get…Do you see the evergreen tree in the upper right? I believe that is an early graveyard. Probably a family cemetery from the original settlers of this “saltwater farm”.
Then I heard barking coming in on the wind, and I realized that one of the sheep was not a sheep at all, but a sheepdog, probably a Great Pyrenees. That is he in roughly the center of the picture. He is likely an absolute necessity, as there are definitely coyotes around who’d love a little lamb feast.
I took so many pictures on this particular day, but I’ll share on another day, if I can find something interesting to say about them.
