Hay meadows

 

Swaledale mini break 6

Muker's hay meadows bloom with wild flowers for just a few weeks in June, and I guess it depends exactly when you visit as to what flowers predominate. There were plenty of buttercups but less red clover and fewer of the purple geraniums (wood crane's bill?) than I remember from my last visit a few years ago.  

You can't really stray from the central path, which is there to prevent people trampling the plants, so proper identification of all the species present is not really possible. 

There are barns in every field. The long 'through stones', which bind the inner and outer skins of the walls together, characteristically project beyond the face of the wall, in rows. 

Further up the dale, farmers had already started cutting the hay. The drying piles have a wonderfully sweet, clean scent, so evocative.