Planning

   I've written about working, living and listening to the rhythms of nature so this blog may seem like a bit of a departure from that sense of living. Planning sounds like a word full of structure and discipline. Planning is what goes on in corporate boardrooms all over the world and it sounds like the thought process that goes into the next huge ad campaign. It has often been said that if you fail to plan then you can plan to fail and while that may be true to some extent if you raise animals or grow vegetables you know that plans change or fail. If you want to do any type of farming you must plan and also plan to change or plan to adapt.
   The coming planting season is almost upon us and we have to plan where things will be planted. I often pull out a tape measure to check the recommended distance between plants and rows. This type of thing has to be done when you only have a tenth of an acre to plant. We are learning to maximize every inch of our land for production and planning and inches matter. I have found the same applies to rabbit breeding, I plan so many litters per doe per year and nature plans something different. I can only make the introduction of the doe to the buck and then nature takes over. Oh I have studied rabbit anatomy and I know how things work, rabbits don't have a real cycle like many other animals. The does are stimulated to ovulate by the act of mating and the eggs descend eight or so hours later so I must breed to doe again to insure to best chance of conception. Yep you guessed it this takes planning especially when you are breeding three or four does in one weekend to one buck but conception is still up to nature. I have orders for rabbits that haven't been kindled yet and so I plan my does breeding cycles and hope nature agrees with my plan. This all falls under planning but guided by nature.
   So in the next few weeks the orders for rabbits will be filled with orders already ahead and so the next litters are spoken for and the planning goes on. The time for planting is coming and this weekend we'll purchase all the plants to go in the ground and the week after that the seeds and transplants will find themselves in our rich soil. All this requires planning but we'll rely on God and nature to make a success of our plans. So most of my posts have been a bit philosophical in nature and I have written about the theory of farming but the next posts you read will be about our experiences as we plant, grow and harvest what we have planned for. I hope to share both in words and pictures our successes and failures and the things we learn along the way. I hope to share new skills learned and perhaps you will learn a bit from us that you can use or perhaps you'll have a chance to laugh at the crazy things we try to do.