Winter feed whets my appetite

THE year is passing, winter reigns, shorter days when nature seems to retreat underground. The fields sleep, the hedgerows are sparse, trees stand like sentries, and even on wet days the air is clear and quiet.

Here and there a fox, rabbit or hare can be glimpsed, going about their business free from interference from our larger livestock. Farming has moved indoors.

Once stock are indoors, farming becomes an oddly aromatic affair. What was a summer of free-range grazing becomes a regime of feeding. Or, to paraphrase my wife, when I carelessly wandered into the kitchen without changing my overalls, “what in God’s name is the smell?” I, of course, could sense nothing.