The Lambs Are Here!

But I am so excited!!!! I know not everyone adorns their photos of lambs with bunting but I am just that kind of person.

It always happens as we are on our way out the door. While baking a pie, packing bags and putting together presents for our families very belated Christmas dinner, I noticed a yew having a hard time getting up from the ground. I thought to myself "Well, didn't we all when we were in our last trimester?" An hour later our daughter, El, pointed out that she was indeed giving birth. WHAT?!?

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.
We purchase a rag tag group of old gals who were culled from the previous farmers herd because of age or the suspicion that they would never have another lamb. We took a chance and though we have not been seeing tremendous results our first lambs were just born the other night.

Down the road live many farmers but one farming family in particular have made this all possible. They have supported us, answered phone calls at weird times of day and have made all of their tools available to us so we could transform Bramblefield. In addition to ALL of this Mark has been given the nickname of Cowboy by the the patriarch of this family. So, henceforth, Mark will be at times called Cowboy in my posts.

Now, back to the WHAT?!? part; We quickly grabbed our coats and ran out to bring her to the barn. This I fear stalled the process and so we waited. By the time it was getting dark (you can see the poor picture quality above) Farmer John came by to give us a little help and do a little training. Within minutes mama sheep was on the ground and I was reaching in to grab the tiny legs. She slipped out without problem and grabbing the back legs I swung her while stroking her chest to release gunck from her throat and get her breathing. We named her Eve. She is the first born lamb on our little farm.

For a long time I have had this on my bucket list and finally I got to help bring a little animal into the world! Needless to say we were pumped and ready for another but for that we would have to wait a few days.

This morning our neighbor called to tell us how sweet the new little lamb was out in the paddock. WAIT! WHAT!?! I have a lamb in the barn but....
We ran out again and by that time there were two new little ones. This mama did it all on her own and so we now have Thor and Fern. (Fern is strutting her stuff in the pic at the top of the post)
Our other 16 sheep are not showing signs yet so again we wait and in a week hopefully will start taking in bummer lambs from Farmer John and family. They have roughly 2,500 yews lambing in the month to come!
Bummers are the ones that either lost their mom or for various reason mom could not feed them. This will be our second year raising bummers and we have found it to be a wonderful ministry to invite people over to bottle feed or just cuddle them. With 3-4 feedings a day I could use the help!

Happy Lambing Season Everyone!
-Elizabeth