Looking forward

It struck me today that most of our work is for the future rather than the here and now. I guess it is the same in most walks of life but when working with animals or the land you are always planning ahead.

We spent much of the weekend, breaking up the ground in the, now empty, boar's pen and rotovating it ready for reseeding. By doing it now the new grass will have time to get established before the winter. It will then be ready for the new lambs to have fresh, clean grass in April/May.

We also started to scrub down and re stain the goose houses, in order to help protect the wood against the winter weather, it will be done again at the start of the summer.

The young pullets were hatched early in the year with the hope that they will come into lay through the winter, providing eggs while the older hens 'take a break'. The turkeys are reared at a time when they will be ready for Christmas, the ewes go to the ram in November so they lamb at the start of the better weather and when the grass is plentiful and so it goes on...

It is much the same in the vegetable patch, planning ahead for the following seasons but still busy with the harvesting of last years planning.