Whew, We Made It Again
In one of our shortest lambing seasons ever, all but five ewes have given birth in just two weeks. So other than these few stragglers, we’re done! As usual, I’m delighted, and Melissa’s face grows longer and longer as reality sets in. She loves finding new baby lambs on the pasture, and thinks she has the best job on the planet.
Our helpers think it’s pretty great as well.
Here I am trying to hold four bottle lambs in stairstep formation, but they’re too squirmy for a photo!
Look at the little pipsqueak on the right in the photo below. She was a triplet (as are all the other bottle lambs) but came out 1/3 the size of a regular lamb. Luckily after a few shaky days, she’s up and running, hopping around like a piece of popcorn, and has just gone to a new home.
Most ewes make great moms. Here are three wary ewes who don’t like that I’m in the pasture. Each is standing guard over at least one lamb. The lambs snuggle down into the grass until you almost can’t see them.
This ewe has just given birth to triplets. ChaChi has come over to check out the new ones, and is gently sniffing a lamb at his feet.
There’s a whole lot of sleeping going on at this farm. Bottle lambs snooze after a big meal:
The calves are clearly uptight about their lives:
I’ll leave you with a few pasture images….
(No, that black sheep above isn’t standing on Zipper’s back….just a photo issue!)
Our reward for the hard work of the last two weeks are all little strong, healthy, and robust babies running around on the pasture. One of these days I’ll figure out the whole video thing and show you what I mean.
6 Responses
Catherine, I am so glad you show both sides of the farm life because if we just saw the cuteness of these little ones, we’d all be volunteering for your life. Thanks so much for all you share. Lu
Lugene,
Yup, there are two sides to every life, aren’t there? I didn’t write about the three lambs that didn’t make it, or how Melissa and her helper would go outside at 5 pm and not come back in until 10:30.
Our friend Mary helped, and she said time seems to stop out here. You have no idea of days or dates; everything is focused on the lambs. It’s like stepping away from the world for awhile—I can’t always hold all of it back, but pretty much our focus is on the sheep. Then suddenly we look up and it’s the end of May.
How did that happen!? 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing the pictures. The little ones are adorable! Hope you will get to rest a little.
Carmen
Stayed up until 1:45 this morning to finish ‘Spanish Pearl’. Don’t know if I can look you in the eye (should I ever meet you face-to-face) after those lusty love scenes! 😉
In all sincerity, tho: well done! I may have to read it again now that I know the characters to get all the names/people/places straight!
P.S. Gudesto sure was a sick —- (rhymes with ‘buck’). Where in the world did you come up with that (kind of) torture?!
🙂 Chicken Mama
Chicken Mama,
You! Think how my parents felt! 🙂
I had to remind them that an author writes about fictional characters, not about herself. They were troupers, and enjoyed both books. (Well, ‘enjoyed’ might be a stretch for my dad—romance isn’t really his genre.)
As for Gudesto, I have NO idea where that man came from. Melissa is often worried about what goes on inside my head….
I love hearing that people stayed up until ridiculous hours finishing “Pearl” or “Valencia.” That means they couldn’t put the books down.
I hope spring has FINALLY reached your neck of the woods…
I, too, sacrificed sleep to finish Spanish Pearl. But the little piles of rags would have sent me back in a minute! Not to mention the smells in general…
And your babies are SO adorable!