Saturday, April 5th:
We went to the Strissel's to work on their shelter for the pigs and when we got back in the afternoon Mercury had just had a lamb. I think that we startled her by arriving just as the lamb had been born.
The lamb had some trouble latching on and getting interested in nursing. After about 24 hours of "forcing" it to nurse we sheared Mercury (who was very wooly) so that the lamb could more easily find the teat. It helped right away and the lamb is doing fine now.
Male
Tuesday, April 8th:
After Tuesday night yoga Joni and I went out ... for a bite to eat and a beer and to knit. We were taking too long with our talk and knitting and Paso Del Norte wanted to close, so we headed back to (business building they own)... do the rest of our knitting there. Joni had to call Alan to get the code to get into the building and when she called him he told her that Reed had been trying to get in touch with me because a sheep was in labor.
We called Reed right away and he said that Earth had been acting funny and even though we didn't think that she was pregnant he went to move her with the rest of the females and lambs. He then saw, after he moved her, that there were hooves coming out of her. He left her alone so that she could continue if he hadn't stalled things too badly, but she lambed just fine and had a teeny male. We haven't seen it nurse much but it is doing fine (I'm writing this over a week later).
Male
Reed has also been working hard on the garden and in the greenhouse and is getting excited about taking a class on making hard cider this summer. He'll register this week. We are also getting set up to build our woodshed. Reed and his grandpa felled some cedars that were going to be shaded out anyway to use for the posts and main beams of the shed. His grandpa has a draw knife that must have belonged to his father or grandfather. He had never used it! Reed's grandpa will be 87 in June, so this drawknife could be over 100 years old! It worked like a dream to remove the bark from the poles.
