Livestock farming

El censo de la cabaña se declara cada año: the census of the national herd is declared every year. The herd — and la cabaña is one of those Spanish nouns an English reader will recognise and then misplace by a few hundred kilometres. In its everyday sense it is the hut: the wooden cabin in the mountains, the shepherd's shelter, and English offers « cabin », « hut » or « shack » for that. But Spanish also uses the same word as a collective for the whole stock of animals a country keeps. La cabaña ganadera española is the Spanish national herd, counted in millions and reported to a ministry. English never lets a cabin count livestock: it says « the national herd », « the national flock » when the animals are sheep, or simply « livestock numbers ». So la cabaña está envejeciendo in a farming journal is not a complaint about roofs.