As a small farmer, you become more and more sensitive to details and signals. On the brink of spring, in the transition from winter feed to grazing, you have to judge whether the sheep are hungry, if the grazing is enough or you need to put out a new silage bale. It seems easy when you know how, but it’s taken some years to get to that point. When I walk in among the flock, I notice how hungry they are from how much they bleat, and whether they make their way toward me.
Sometimes they even go up to the gate leading to the next field in the rotation. It’s perhaps not just so much that I’m now able to read their signals, but also that the sheep have learned to give these signals. We have each other, the sheep and I.