The animals

Most years we have pigs; originally breeding sows and their young, and now introducing young piglets to raise from spring into early autumn. Their home is one of a line of three fenced enclosures, each with an ark (a semi-cylinder with entrances at each end) to keep them warm and sheltered. The pigs draw me outside when I don’t feel like it. They need feeding twice a day, their water needs topping up and when I’m on my rounds, often as not, I see something I wasn’t looking for: a sparrowhawk taking a bird mid-flight a few metres from my head; the first daffodils, a fortnight ahead of usual; a lamb being born earlier than it should.