Rotating is Good

The new fencing is working out great.  A few days ago, it was time to move the sheep to a new pasture so I went out to the rails to switch them from one set of posts to another and the sheep came down, waited patiently, and ran into the new pasture with longer grass, dandelion blossoms, and an assortment of other new vegetation.

Rotating is Good.  I am in rotation now myself.  I am currently in Maine, exploring and consulting with Rosemary, who has been stewarding a 1790's house on 52+ acres of magical land for almost a year.  (pictures coming soon when I rotate back home where my picture transfer device is)

Yesterday, when walking part of the property, we saw a Trillium, patches of Bloodroot, and  other earlier blooming wildflowers.  With this rotation, it seems, I went back a calendar month to the first break of spring.  The deciduous  trees are just beginning to leaf but there are a great many species of coniferous trees in all stages of life.  There are signs everywhere, of previous human intervention; rock walls fashioned in different configurations, pieces of fencing, parts of irrigation systems, stumps of 100 year old trees, flat stones over the upper part of the brook.  I wish we could rotate back in time and see the mill working off the brook and see what some of the other stone walls were built for, and by whom.  As it is, we must just use our imagination.  While we were imagining, we envisioned 50 goats clearing some of the berry canes and other overgrowth in the future pasture areas.  We came back to the house to check Craigslist for someone needing to find a new place for their herd.  Instead we found a guy who had 10  21-29 foot fiberglass sailboat hulls he wanted to rotate to a new place for shelters for sheep, goats, or pigs.  He had a good imagination as well.

We ended the day by burning some brush and roasting hotdogs on a stick over the fire.  A, I, H, and M joined us for dinner.  A was in charge of the foil potatoes for the coals, I & H whittled the points of the hotdog sticks and helped feed the fire, and M, at almost 2, copied everything everyone else did.

I am hoping to do a couple of quick rotations before I find myself home, where I will be able to provide photos for the imagining readers of this blog.