Seven Lambs and Holding

Warm days... perfect for lambs and no one has lambed! Lambing here is usually slow but this year is outrageous. Everytime I check the barn, the lounging ewes just look at me and continue chewing their cud like I'm disturbing them. The seven beautiful lambs are growing quickly and jumping around the barnyard. I laugh when the close to birth moms hear those lambs BAAA, they act like their lambs have arrived and they must begin mothering. "If only having a baby was that easy Mama," I tell them. Hopefully this weekend will have some new lambs on the ground and new pictures for my blog. They are just waiting for the cold weather to return so they can torture me in the cold.

Lambing is progressing slowly as it usually does. This week we added 3 new lambs to the flock. A big single and black twins that really surprised me! Both ewes lambed during the day, quickly and took right to mothering. I am so grateful for their consideration since nighttime temps here have been bone chilling cold.

We have been promised warmer weather so hopefully the mound of icy snow in front of the barn door will melt and I won't have to carry bags of grain from the truck into the barn through the people door. UGH! The barnyard is so slick that with a few passes of a Zamboni I could open it up us an ice rink.

First BFL Baby

It's a girl....and a big one too. First baby BFL of the season. 24 hours old in this picture.

Triplets

Madeline (yes, all my sheep have names) my oldest ewe began our 2011 lambing season with her first set of triplets out of a BFL ram. It's so great to go out and find a ewe with lambs all cleaned off, nursing and content in spite of a temperature of 3 degrees. I love not being needed.

Herc

Another foot of snow . No lambs but I trudged to the barn to find my llama dead in the large feeding area. Herc was old and getting frail and thin so the bitter cold winter we have had was bound to take him. Of course the ewes stood right on top of him while I fed and tried to figure out a way to remove his body. Getting an old plastic sled and Tim, we rolled Herc onto the sled and slid him into the barnyard to the awaiting tractor. It seemed like a less than dignified end for a guy that took his guard job seriously and never asked for special attention.

Everyone that drove past the farm looked for him and visitors always wanted to walk Herc on a lead until he got close and his imposing size changed their minds. He walked elegantly for those brave enough to try and spitting was something he seldom did. I loved the way he checked each newborn lamb in at birth until he determined it was part of his flock and could stay. If I forgot to close the storage hole in the barn wall Herc would get his nose in there and pull everything out.. .records, pens, medications etc. I never figured out wether he was bored or just trying to be funny. And he was great at finding "not quite" hooked gates, opening them and taking the whole flock for walks on Potosi Road. Roundup time was done easily with a bucket of grain but I swear I caught Herc smiling.

Last night as I left the hole in the wall open , a tear dripped down my face and quickly froze. Herc's spirit will be in the barn with me as the lambs come, but I'll miss him looking over my shoulder wanting to be first to smell the newborn.

Getting Ready For Lambs!

It's sunny but oh so cold and windy today. Working outside the barn is rough on the skin so Tim helped me get lambing pens ready in the barn for expected Bluefaced Leicester babies next weekend. Hopefully they will wait until the arctic blast has past but lambs seem to like to arrive when it's super cold. I'm usually more miserable than they are. My former farm helper, Sam, got me a new hypothermic lamb blanket that has a microwaveable lining that heats to 110 then tucks into the blanket wrapping around the cold lamb. Hopefully I won't have to use it, but it sure will be good to have it since every lambing season brings at least one or two cold lambcicles.

The Shetlands love this weather. This morning they were all lounging in the newly fallen snow very content to just be. There are only 20 Shetlands in the pen now so feeding is so much easier than it was last winter with a larger number to battle through with grain and hay. Shetland babies are expected later in February and March.

Thanks Tim for helping me get the barn ready. Having help sure makes the job go faster.

New Yarn

Here's the BFL natural colored yarn I finally got from the mill. Lustrous and sooo soft.It's not gray but more of a brown tone, which is very interesting. I want to put it in my private stash instead of putting it out for sale but my stash is getting beyond the time I have to get into it so it will be for sale at Maryland.

Rooting through my last few 2010 fleeces I found a Shetland moorit lamb's fleece that I had set aside and forgot about. My goal for 2011 was to spend more time preparing fleeces before spinning so this fleece has been washed, picked annnnd I even cut all the tips off each lock.That was a labor of love but I think it will make a big difference in the finished product. It is unbelievably soft. Maybe I can get to carding it tomorrow!