I am familiar with two poems entitled 'The Shepherd's Calander'. The more allegorical one by Edmund Spenser (1579) and that of John Clare's (1824) rural realism. The annual sequencing of sheep-keeping tasks remains much the same.
This year's lambs are about four week's old now so it was time to move our small flock of nine ewes and ten lambs a short distance to some grazing a nearby farmer friend lends to us each year in return for one of our Norfolk Black turkey's at Christmas time. The sheep will be there for about 6-8 weeks before returning home again and some fresh grass. It is hoped that last year's drought in this part of the country won't be repeated.
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| The sheep are in their family groups but the ewe in the centre did not get pregnant, so no lambs for her this year. |
In fact, nearly all of our smallholding activities come around in a regular annual cycle. Now I am busy sowing, pricking out, potting on and planting. We have quail and turkey eggs in incubators. (One of the latter will be the farmer's Christmas offering by which time it should be about 4-5 kilograms oven-ready weight). The last of the latest litter of piglets have recently departed to a new home. Twenty day old meat-variety chicks arrived for growing on, and egg production from hens and ducks is now at full throttle.
The regular cyclical routine which we live by suits us very well. It keeps us grounded whatever else is happening in the world.
