Getting serious

Our 3rd season is in the starting blocks. The sheep (2) and goats (3) lambed in February and March, and are now rearing their offspring: 5 kids and 4 lambs – a lively bunch. Gretchen must have lost her lamb in autumn, but luckily Olga, her daughter, had a little adventure with the ram at the beginning of winter and is due in May. During winter we decided that it would make more sense to continue only with the sheep next year, keeping both species in the same barn in winter but also in the pasture is summer is just double work: tougher fencing for the goats, different social interaction (the goats being clearly more dominant and aggressive) and keeping two rams… It’s a tough choice, because their differences are also why I like both, but the sheep have proven to be easier to keep during the past two years. They are more peaceful and their occasional conflicts look more like stubborn slow-motion sumo in comparison to the goats’ mean horn stabs in the belly. So we also took over three sheep from a neighbouring farm in preparation of next year, mixed milk-breeds, who bring a bit of colour in the herd.

From this year on we are also fully entering the agricultural community, with ca. 2 more ha of grassland to make hay and keep our extended flock. The approximate rule is that you can keep 10 animals and their offspring on a ha of really good land (plus make hay), so we can relax, and even get a donkey, who knows! This year though this means a lot of fencing work… Unfortunately, it is registered as cropland and it’s not ours, so according to the owner and following EU CAP rules we will have to convert it back to cropland once every 5 years, otherwise the land would turn into permanent grassland (and lose its long term economic value for the owner). Obviously from an ecological and practical point of view this is totally idiotic, but we don’t have a say in this and the surfaces are ideally placed for us…

Alfred and Ferdinand, the Indian Runner ducks, that we were so excited to welcome last autumn, have not survived the winter: in January the garden pond that they had naturally adopted as their home (categorically refusing the pretty thatched-roof duck-house that Hannes had built), froze over, leaving them vulnerable to night attacks. They therefore decided to retreat to the creek, which was still flowing and warmer. That went well the first night; after the second night they had disappeared without a trace. Two of our six chickens also ended-up as prey, and did not come back from their daytime stroll through the neighbouring woods. I spotted both a fox and a racoon dog (Marderhund, Chien viverrin – a potentially alien invasive species in our region) around our garden, so let’s say at least we helped them get over the winter well-fed.

During the winter I was also able to finalise a first  ‘corporate design’, although that sounds much more ambitious than I feel. And from next Saturday on I will be selling cheese and yoghurt on the market in Rostock, on a weekly basis! More news on how that will work out next time…