What I Knew about Lambing Season

For years, I steered clear of sheep.

Who wants to spend winter nights in the barn, playing midwife, and bringing lambs into the mudroom to warm and to bottle feed?

But I learned it didn't have to be that way.

Much of the work can be avoided if you select hardy stock that births unassisted and breed for spring lambs.

Yet, at midnight, I found myself walking to the barn.

The Neck Roll Ewe had already delivered, dried and nursed twin lambs.

All I had to do was bring them into the barn, dip the lambs' umbilical cords in iodine, and put them in a stall away from the flock.

Then, I sat in the cold barn, as the March snow fell, and watched and watched and watched.