Frog off!

Frog off – the first night of the frog mating season at our pond – is one of the landmarks of the year. It is the sure and certain sign that the worst of winter is past and that nature has turned inexorably towards spring. It is a sound that thrills us and we rejoice as we turn away from mud and cold and to the prospect of new growth and new life on the smallholding.

Sheep don’t like the rain

While the vast majority of sheep live almost exclusively outdoors, this is not what they would choose – as this winter on the smallholding has shown me.

Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood (or winter on the holding)

Winter on the holding is dominated by the weather and the challenges it brings, whether of cold or mud, to care effectively for livestock (and humans). But it also brings the pleasure of knowing the sheep more intimately as well as the constant joy and company of the goats.

All for the want of a horseshoe nail (or cylinder head gasket)…

Smallholding is a delicate balance. Often it only takes one relatively minor disaster to tip the whole precarious system over the edge…