If you stood at the edge of my garden this week, the first thing you'd notice isn't the zucchini or the basil or the dill going feathery in the morning sun. It's the black. Long runs of landscape fabric stretched down every bed, plants poking up through neat little slits like they were placed by someone who has their life together.

We raise meat rabbits and process them at home at 12–14 weeks — the standard time frame where a rabbit has put on good meat but hasn't started eating into its own feed efficiency. The meat becomes raw food for our working dogs. We currently eat very little of it ourselves, because our table is covered by other stock — but a rabbit is also a meal if we ever need one, which is part of why we keep them.

Moving the flock to fresh grazing is one of my favorite jobs of the whole day. There's nothing like watching sheep pour through an open gate and tear straight into a new patch of grass with their heads down, going for their favorites first. If you ever want a fast read on herd health, this is it. Five quiet minutes watching who eats eagerly, who hangs back, who's shouldering in for the best bite will tell you more than most charts.