State of Wonder

In her first day, the lamb learns how to nurse, tests her jump moves and watches her mom for signs of danger. She mouths hay and dunks her nose in the water. In the evening, she snuggles up to her sister for a nap.

This is our 11th lambing season, and I still find myself drawn to the barn and filled with a sense of wonder.

For the first time this year, we have a lamb with a distinguished sock.

Did it come from his paternal side? Or was there some gene on his maternal side, slumbering for generations and just now showing itself?

Or did he know that he'd enter this world on a Monday when mismatched socks sometimes happen?

I think I'll call him Monday.

When Ma Nature Gives You Snow...

Lambs are to be born into sunshine and the promise of green grass, not freezing winds and snow.

But this has not been a normal winter.

With lambing season days away and a weather forecast calling for high winds and below freezing temperatures, I find myself in the barn, figuring out how to find space for 10 pregnant ewes.

The sheep and horses spend most of their time in the pastures or under lean-tos that provide protection from rain and west winds. They seem happier having space to move around--and I am not spending hours mucking manure from stalls.

In normal springs, I don't worry about ewes delivering lambs outside. Only once have I had a lamb chill in the spring winds--and a hair dryer dried it and warmed it.

Freezing winds will chill a lamb quickly. So, I've tucked the ewes in groups of three and four in horse stalls for a few days, just in case lambs don't want to wait for sunshine.