Back to Normal - Almost

The holidays are over and the humans on this farm are all finding it difficult to revert back to the normal day-to-day business of life. Back to school. Back to business. How quickly the holiday euphoria slips away.

Our animals, smart as they are, didn’t get caught up in the over-indulging, the merrying and the harried-ness. (I must admit though that I did slip them all a bunch of goodies cooked especially for them on several occassions.) Our kitten Otto is putting it all in perspective here – he’s found a nice warm spot under a chair which is covered with snow. It's like a mini-igloo. He’s waiting out the winter here – at least for a little while.


Today, after I dropped Julia off at school, I went to the barn to see what was going on. There was a black ewe in labor. I left her alone, partly because it was dark and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get good photos of the birth for you, and also because she seemed quite skittish.

The sheep aren’t as accustomed to me poking around the barn. The Farmer is the most regular visitor. Here he is driving an 800 lb. bale of hay into the greenhouse barn to feed the sheep.


The sheep are eating snow right now for their water intake. They line up along the barn and eat the fresh fallen snow as it plummets off the roof of the barn. You can see them in the photo below along with the others lounging in the sun.


I went back in the the barn and the ewe had lambed. Here’s the new black lamb - quite a big one for the size of the mother. She was up on her feet in no time. It never ceases to amaze me. The white ewe had a lamb yesterday but was still quite interested in the new arrival.



And yes, that is steam rising from the lamb. It was cold and she was very warm.