Babies at the farm

    The delivery of the lambs from two ewes has doubled our flock.  We are now the proud caretakers of ten sheep, (and thinking we were quite right in not breeding our third ewe).  Maxine gave us twins, and last Wednesday, Arwen dropped triplets, as we suspected.  The twins are male and female.  Thankfully, the triplets are all ewes!  The idea of culling our first babies was hard to swallow, but no farm needs a lot of rams. The trick with the trips is that they are white like their mom and dad.  Pippin has one defining mark - a small black dot on her hip.  Merry and Galadriel are both white - just white.  I am hoping one develops a slightly dustier looking nose or something allowing us to identify her without having to read her ear tags.
     Yesterday, we let the lambs and mamas out on the pasture for a bit - they loved it.

first steps outside the barn

I have an oak leaf!

      A few of neighbors stopped by to see the lambs, and Ted, an old shepherd himself, warned us to watch out for the eagles.  This had never occurred to me.  We have at least one mating pair of bald eagles living near by.  Ted said he has always been more worried about the eagles stealing his lambs than the coyotes.  We know the llama will help stave off a coyote insurgence, but what would he do with an aerial attack?

Time to rest for the 3 day old lambs

The big kids on the block playing King of the Hill.

      Babies on the farm come in all shapes and colours, including the new chicks.  We had our youngest go to pick out half a dozen new chicks (pullets all - NO MORE ROOSTERS!) and they are now in the basement in their brooder.

So Spring is happening as it should on a farm - new arrivals, some plowing, some planting and hopes for the right amounts of sun and rain.  As our friend, Ted, said when he saw the lambs, "You're in it for real now."