Snowmageddon Part II

How can it be? Another blizzard just 2 weeks after the last one. This time I felt prepared. With my trusty cordless drill, I had patched holes in the barn, placed barriers in broken windows and installed a tarp above the gate where the wind and snow came in the last time. This time the snow would not invade the cozy, newly bedded areas in the barn. OR so I thought. When I went out at 2AM, the 50 mph wind was blowning snow everywhere and the tarp was like a sail lifting the gate to which it was tied right off its hinges. The noise it made had both the sheep and the llama cowering in one stall. It was as bad as the last blizzard. 2 ewes are due to lamb today so I instructed them to please NOT lamb til tomorrow as I added more dry straw. I have been lambing here for 23 years and have only ever had 1 blizzard in all that time. This is incredible. I cannot even get down to the Shetland barn til I can see it. Those little buggers will be just fine. They are so tough and funny.
One bright note.....the 2 ewes listened to me!!!! They did not have little lambcicles for me to carry into lambing pens freezing my hands even more. Would someone in Arizona or New Mexico please send me the real estate section?

Will It Ever End? Depressing

Winter is usually fine with me. I'd rather be cold than hot, but this winter has made me think about Arizona or New Mexico. (Never Florida!) We finally got down to mud...good squishy, slippery mud... on my path to the barn, when the weather forcast predicts more snow. AAHHH I tried to carry bales down to the Shetland barn on Tuesday. The mind was willing and the body wouldn't cooperate. Tim finally came to my rescue yesterday. Really feeling old this year.
In the midst of this physical stress, I went to get a new passport photo taken.Dumb idea. What a shock when I saw it. The woman who took it said, "Hey this is really good", so I guess that's what I really do look like. They say the camera doesn't lie but I would have appreciated a little white one at least OR air brushing. From there, I went shopping for my niece. Since I am missing the female shopping gene, this didn't take long. Stupidly, I tried something on for myself. Now I'm feeling not only old but FAT. It used to be that when I had a bad shopping day I bought shoes, claiming that shoes wouldn't make you look fat. Well....thanks to some slender chik on the Today Show, that idea is no longer correct. Do earrings make you look fat? Thinking not, I bought a pair. Now my neck looks short! Whatever!
When I got home, I dyed a few skeins of wool. My colors are usually bright and zippy, but these were drab and dull. A reflection of my day. I quit dying and called it a day. Come on Spring and bright colors!

UNCLE

Another 20 inches and drifts chest high. The wind blew snow into every part of the barn creating drifts in the sheep bedding.I have never seen it like this. Tim and I spent hours trying to block openings, put down dry straw, and move ready to lamb ewes to more protected pens. While working frantically, I heard grunting. A ewe was in labor with no place to lie down and push. Finding her a dry spot and getting the other sheep out of her spot was challenging but the worst was yet to come. I pulled the first lamb, long overdue and orange. Mom took over cleaning him while I waited for the second lamb. One foot appeared but that was it. When I went in, there were 2 legs but the lamb's head was no where to be found. Head back deliveries are a challenge. My arm was in the ewe up to my armpit when I found the head. Good thing too because I couldn't reach any further. What a relief to pull out another live baby. By this time I was soaking wet and frozen whith bottle babies sucking on my ears. Thankfully Mom bounced right up,taking care of both boys. The delivery didn't seem to phase her a bit. I seemed to be in worse shape. Wine time!

Amish Basketball

Another snowstorm looming. Great. We haven't even gotten dug out from the last one. While the sun was shining, Tim offered to help me get hay down to the lower level of the barn and stacked on the lowest level where the sheep are. The bales come from the 4th level of the barn, up 2 ladders and a flight of steps. I usually throw them down, where they free fall about 20 feet and if I'm on, can get them to hit the hole in the second level floor down to the lower level...a 2'x3' opening. Missing the hole means a bounce in any direction on the second level of the barn, where it can wind up almost anywhere amidst the antiques and junk accumulated there. The cats scatter and stuff crashes. It's a feeble way of amusing myself while doing a mundain task. Tim tried the job today and also found it entertaining. He called it "Weird Amish Basketball". He got bonus points for bouncing one bale into a trashcan full of salt w/o knocking the can over. Being of like humor we both cheered. Who needs to buy tickets to entertainment venues? Can this be construed as Cabin Fever?

27 Inches and It's Still Snowing

We went from sunny and wonderful on Thursday to snow so deep it's hard to walk to the barns. Thursday, Pearl had her lambs in the pasture. The sun had them dry in no time. Today,no one can find the pasture! The best thing though is the quiet. Our farm is very close to I83 and we get a lot of traffic noise. Snow shuts the road down and everything is wonderful and peaceful. About midnight I sat and enjoyed the quiet while watching the lambs frolic. Although lambing is hectic and exhausting, watching the lambs play is such a reward. Watching them never gets old.

Pictures For Molly

Molly lives in Utah and misses the lambs being born. I wish I had her help right now too! She is demanding pictures (brat) so here they are. Wish cameras had a setting that allows for lamb leaps because these new BFL ewe lambs were blurring all their pictures.

Looks like it will be a lambing in the middle of the night year, even though nothing has changed with the feeding routine. Our lambs, in the past, mostly came in the morning. That is much easier for the shepherd but that's lambing!

Monday night....twin ewe lambs born to a moorit ewe sired by Finnegan CHV2.
Tuesday night....twin ewe lambs BFL Finnegan sired.
Looks like Finn was a busy guy in September.

Too Cold

Winter in PA is not usually this cold. Sunday morning I found 2 newborn lambs frozen stiff. They were average size and beautiful. They had evidently wandered into a hole behind the gate right after birth in search of Mom's milk or a warm dark spot. I had noticed this hole a week ago and thought I had plugged it up, but I guess not. Altho, I check the barn every 2-3 hours, 12 degrees without milk did them in quickly. Mom was frantic and led me right to them when I fed that morning. Funny thing happened too. I left the lambs with Mom to grieve and after several hours, took both stiff lambs to the gate to get a bag to put them in.( Of course, I got distracted and did not return ASAP.) When I finally did return to get the lambs they were gone. Mom had somehow moved them back to their birthplace and was sleeping with her head on them like they were alive. How did she move them such a distance in such a short period of time? Sheep don't carry their babies like cats do. I left the babies with her til Mom moved away on her own. She is so depressed and I feel so badly that I didn't get them in time. I am mad at myself about the hole too. You can bet it is boarded up now. These freaky things in lambing always make me so mad at myself. Careless shepherding has no excuse.