“This is a particular scene I see a lot on our morning dog walk to Port Quin. The key was to have areas of simplicity in the painting, such as the sky, the foreground and the grass behind the cow to keep the painting easy on the eye. I wrote this accompanying poem:

Through the gate as old as time
Tied up, here and there, with bailer twine.
A robin chirps from a nearby hedge,
A pheasant croaks from a hillside edge.

The winter sun catches the tops
And shines on the distant copse,
A silver frost rests in the valley-
And the first shoots of winter barley.

The farmer ambles over the grass-
Muddied, damp and growing sparse.
Over his shoulder he carries a sack
Hunched over, it rests on his back.

The cold nips at his ruddy cheeks,
His tatty green wellington squeaks,
His fingers are cold and soiled,
He’s shaped by a lifetime of toil

He leads the bullocks to the trough,
Empties the sack and then he is off,
Back to his truck on his weary way,
To his next job, on this fine winters day.”