Dimensiunea temporală a sistemului montan-pendulator de creștere a oilor pe Valea Argeșului
The Temporal Dimension of the Mountain-Pendulatory System of Sheep Breeding on Argeș Valley

Summary/Abstract: The villages on Argeș river upper valley, some of them having a population of Transylvanian origin, have developed a type of shepherding determined by specific spatial coordinates: the boundary of the settlements is relatively reduces, the arable lands occupies small areas and there are no crops alternating with the parcels left to rest, factors that make it impossible to feed flocks in the border, during the summer time. As a compensation, the villages are in the proximity of Făgăraș Mountains, which generously offer alpine pastures for drowning. These conditions together with the zonal climate gave rise to a specific time coordinate describing the mountain-pendulatory system for sheep breeding specific also to the pre-mountain villages of Albeștii de Argeș commune, to a pastoral calendar and to a schedule that mark the pastoral day in this area. This time coordinate presents the following features: 1. Low-scale agriculture does not significantly condition the time sequences specific to the pastoral process, temporal limitations imposed on grazing being generated by the need to preserve the meadows. 2. The period of exploitation of the sheep's lactating potential is relatively short, probably due to a weaker autumn feeding determined by the lack of large miriște (agricultural plot where inferior parts of the cereal stalks or from other cultivated plants) and porumbiști (plot that was previously cultivated with corn) at the border of the village. 3. The degree of agricultural involvement of the sheep is low, not very strictly regulated and it is reduced only to the autumn interval. 4. Neither the pastoral calendar nor the pastoral day hours are subordinated to the rigors imposed by măsuriș (spring custom to measure the sheep milk in order to decide the quantity of milk products that belongs to each sheeps’ owner) and by the daily distribution of the milk to the associates („the turn to milk”), the system of dividing the products towards the owner being simplu, „on sheep’s head”. 5. Programming of the litters depends mostly on the optimal date, from the economic point of view, for sacrificing of the lambs and on the needs to leave enough time for lamps from the lamb birth till climbing lambs on the mountain.

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