Twins Braving the Storm

Most of the lambs stayed in the greenhouse barn during the Wednesday's massive snow and sleet and ice storm. Except for these two little ones. They were braving the snow and sleet with their mama. I couldn't believe how cute they were.


They seem to be talking to each other, don't they? I wonder what they are saying.


Look at those cute little dirty knees. Have a nice weekend everyone.

Sheep During Storm

It's been a particularly rough, stormy and really cold winter here in western Massachusetts. We usually get a January thaw but that hasn't happened yet. Considering February starts Saturday, it isn't happening this year. It has been one storm after another and yesterday was no exception. It was so gray but pretty in its very own way.

Most things around here were cancelled or closed and it was one of those lovely days where kids get to do what they want instead of going to school. I tried to do what I was supposed to but life got in the way.

Taking photos on days like this is always fun. Julia and I drove down to the barn before the ice got too bad. It was really gray and snowing like crazy. I took it slow. When we arrived, The Farmer was in the process of feeding haylage to the sheep.


Sheep need a lot of food when it is storming. It puts a lot of stress on them and they seem to eat non-stop. Notice how their backs are covered with ice-encrusted snow. Oh boy - thank goodness wool makes a warm coat.


Eyeore was out loving the snow. It didn't bother him one bit.

Most of the lambs were inside the greenhouse barn where it was warm. The mamas were outside stocking up on food fuel to keep their little milk machines going.


This gorgeous Romney cross had seen it all before. She wasn't at all nervous and knew that soon the snow would subside.


I love how the white snow and ice crusted up on this brown ewe. Hard to believe she could see through it all.

Everyone made it through fine. More pictures of the sheep in the storm coming your way.

It Must Be January

At our farmhouse, I can tell what month it is even without looking at the calendar. Besides all the activity that lambing in January brings, it almost always includes taking a shower in a bathroom full of lambs. This January is no exception. Last week we had several bone chilling days of below zero temperatures. Every day, there would be a lamb that was near death, not to mention those that didn’t make it through the cold.

Most of the newborn lambs pull through but there is always the lamb whose mother won't accept it for many reasons. First time and young mothers often don't know what to do with their lambs. Some mothers have twins and only want to care for one. Other mothers would like to care for both twins but they don't produce enough milk. Sometimes, lambs are born outside of the barn and it is just too cold for them to survive.


When The Farmer walks in the door, Julia and I never know what he'll have in his arms. These four little lambs were all "goners" as he calls it. But with a little TLC, lamb formula, heat from our woodstove and fireplace, sometimes some dextrose injections to bring them back, all of these guys survived. He is no miracle worker - just a good and patient farmer. Not all of the lambs he brought inside survived but I won't bore you with those stories. It's just the way it is.

Bottle lambs get fed "lamb milk replacer" which smells just like infant formula. They get fed 4 to 5 times a day. We purchase lamb and goat nipples by the dozen which fit perfectly on a plastic soda bottle. The dogs think this lamb in the house thing is the greatest.

During "lambs in the house" season, my sponge mop and diluted bleach solution are my friends. Thank goodness I decided on tile for my bathroom when I re-did it several years ago. And thank goodness I’m not a neat freak nor one of those people who use antibacterial soap every other minute. If that is you, I strongly advise not visiting us over the next month.

Next week, when it warms up, these four little guys will be moving outside to a temporary shelter. It sure will be a shock for them but they have warm little wooly coats on and will do just fine.

Amazing Mother Nature

I've been wanting to make a video of a sheep giving birth for a couple of years. I bought Julia a "Flip Camera" for a Christmas gift knowing I would have as much fun with it as she would!

Two weekends ago we were lucky enough to witness several sheep giving birth. This video is of an older cross-bred Romney ewe giving birth to a single, giant lamb. The birth took place over about 30 minutes but I've edited it down for you. Enjoy our little slice of rural life and the amazingness of Mother Nature.

To see the video, go here.

Beyond Cold

This morning it is 2 below zero! This is the kind of day you lose lambs - even healthy ones if they catch a chill or perhaps fall into the water trough by mistake and can't get warm. Let's hope everyone survives the day.

It was stunningly beautiful this morning despite the cold. The sun was bouncing off the trees make the apple trees look like almost sureal. I love days like these but I am also thankful for the wood heat in our furnace.

Some of our cats barely venture outside in the winter. They prefer lounging on the blankets and wool throws that are scattered about. Once in a while, I will be looking for a swatch for a project I am working on. It will have disappeared and I become incredibly frustrated. Then a cat will go for a snack and I discover that one of the felines has been sleeping on the little swatch. So funny. Otto, our male red striped tiger, loves the cold. He stays out all night and prowls around. I am amazed he enjoys the cold as much as he does but he sure does have one thick fur coat on so I shouldn't worry.

I just got the newest issue of Vogue Knitting - Winter 2008/2009. It looks like there are a bunch of very nice projects in it - many of them relatively quick to knit so you could actually finish something before the season changes. I think Trisha and Joe and the rest of the team really got it right with this cover. The icy blue thickly spun cabled scarf certainly echos the winter weather here today.

I've got a cute pair of scarves in this Winter issue. They are the last project in the book. I love the picture of these two adorable kids. These scarves were knit of Nashua's Creative Focus. It's a loosely spun wool and alpaca yarn that is real soft and is available in over 60 colors. I think if you work hard, you could knit one in a weekend. And of course, you could change the colors and make something more bright and poppy!

Before I shipped the scarves off last year, I took a photo of Julia wrapped up in both of them. Here she is. Boy - she is a patient kid! It was pretty hot out and I had her wrapped up in a blanket and wearing both of the scarves around her neck.

A New Beginning

January is full of new beginnings here at our farm, mostly of the newborn lamb kind. Our sheep have had over 110 lambs so far this year. It has been hectic to say the least and My Farmer is beginning to be weary. Today, as Julia and I chatted it up about the new president and all the festivities down in Washington, The Farmer went about his chores barely having a minute to pay attention to what was going on in the greater world. That's how it is during lambing season - lots and lots to be done and barely a minute to partake in what most would consider normal life.


This afternoon, Julia and I went to check on the new lambs after she got out of school. I helped with feeding hay and then got a chance to check on the four new babies that were born this morning.

We don't often name our lambs because many of them go to market. If we name any of them, it is usually the girls which we are more likely to keep or the bottle lambs we feed for a few months several times a day. Frankly, as the lambs grow bigger and more independent, it is almost impossible to know one from another. Besides Cora, none of the other sheep have names.

But this little girl lamb is different. She arrived early Tuesday morning and we have named her Obama. She's has lovely black and white patchy spots. It seemed fitting to mark this day of new beginnings in the United States by naming this little one after our new president.

Winter Sustenance

Taking a break from the lambing today..... I enjoy cooking and a bit of baking - especially when I have time to try out new recipes. In the summer with the longer days and our farming schedule, I don't have the luxury of such experimentation. Over the weekend, my mom and my two nephews Nicholas and Francisco who have been living in Brazil came up and spent the weekend with us. Besides lots of teaching them all about sheep farming, we made a bunch of really great meals. Friday night we made homemade pasta. Before we cooked it, we hung it on the kitchen line to keep it neat. It looked like this.

I love Marcella Hazan's cookbooks - especially Essentials of Italian Cooking. I use her basic pasta recipe and it never fails. Depending on the weather, I need to add more flour or water. We served it with Marcella's simple ham, mushroom, and cream sauce. I used ham from my own pigs so it was a pretty fun meal.


My great longtime friend Linda and I share a love of cooking (along with a love of knitting and yarn). She always gives me the most amazing cookbooks for my birthdays and Christmas. I look forward to what she picks for me and it is tough for me to reciprocate with equally amazing books (but I try). For my 50th, Linda gave me Jamie At Home by Jamie Oliver. I love this cookbook - the photos, the paper, the chapter openers are all so arfully done. I'm using the short winter days to browse through it and decide what to make. Here is one of the hand-printed feeling intros to onions. Throughout the book, there are tips for growing veggies and lovely block-prints. It's a visual feast.

The book brings you right there - to Jamie's garden and kitchen. Last summer, I made his amazing ketchup with my garden's tomato glut. Next summer, I highly suggest you try it too! It really isn't ketchup like you know.


For Christmas, Linda gave me James Beard's Fireside Cookbook. It is a 60th anniversary edition. I love reading this book and thinking back to when cooking was different -- when there weren't the choices in the grocery store that we have now. The Fireside Cookbook is illustrated by Martin and Alice Provensen. Perhaps you know their work with Margaret Wise Brown and "The Color Kittens." I am crazy for all the illustrations. Here are a few delightful samples.

At the Fair:

The endpapers:


Delighful spot art:


The book jacket of this book unfolds and a poster is printed on the wrong side. What a gift it is! Thanks so much Linda. I've got to start cooking from it soon.

I relish more chances to read and cook and knit in the winter. How about you?

Comfy Spot

Looks pretty comfy, doesn't it?

Pretty soon they'll all be fighting for the best seat in the house!

What's That?

I love when I see the lambs and ewes looking almost human-like. This little guy kept nudging his mom's ear. Wonder what he was asking for?

Good News!

Remember a while back, I told you that we were pretty sure the coyotes had finished Cora off. (Cora was Julia' bottle lamb from two years ago). Well, we were wrong. Very wrong.

Saturday afternoon we found a black ewe who strongly resembled Cora, Julia's bottle lamb from a couple years ago. All three of us were standing in the back of the barn, checking out the newest lambs when a brown ewe walked up to us. We looked at one another and all wondered out loud ---- "Could this be Cora?" The ewe kept hanging around and after about 20 minutes of Julia patting her without the ewe leaving the scene, we decided that Cora must indeed still be with us. We were all overjoyed.

The next day, we arrived to find Cora had delivered a huge white ram lamb. Amazingly big - it was a wonder petite Cora didn't have trouble with her lambing. Here she is with "Jackson" as Julia has named him. He is taking his first steps.


Jackson is a few days old now and Cora is darn proud. She is such a splendid mama.

Here is proud "grandma Julia."


We were mistaken! Boy are we glad!

Eating Snow

For sheep, it's all about the food and drink. All day long. Besides water which The Farmer puts into big plastic troughs, the sheep love to eat snow. They pick at it just like a kid does. The water in the trough freezes pretty quick these days. It gets tipped over and the ice gets knocked out. Then we fill it up again - it stays unfrozen long enough for everyone to get a drink.


I love when they lift their head out of the snow and look like this!

Here's another new arrival. This mama is quite old and I fear it may be her last lamb. She does look wiser than the rest, doesn't she? Her lamb got right up and hopefully he will be nursing when I return later to the barn. The Farmer is on the job making sure they all are doing as well as they can.

It's Snowing Lambs!

We've been really busy! 77 lambs so far. You read it right! I can't believe it! Every day for the past week, there's been between 7 and 10 lambs coming into our farm world. Wowweeeeee! We're expecting lots more too!

As you can see, the paint numbering system is back in -- I'm totally agreeing with The Farmer now. It's so hard to see who belongs to which mama that some bit of order is needed! You'll all just have to live with the red and blue paint!

Here's the lambs that the brown and white ewe I told you about the other day. Isn't that the cutest little spotted lamb?


Tell me - are you all sick of this lambing stuff yet?

Whose Lamb is This?

When I arrived at the barn yesterday, I found this new born with two mamas. I hung around watching – trying to see which mama would feed the baby. I thought the mother was the white ewe – her udder seemed larger than the brown and white ewe. After about 30 minutes, I saw the lamb nurse from the white ewe. But the brown and white ewe persisted in trying to care for the lamb.

This morning, this brown and white ewe had a set of twins – one white and one black. We figured she was close to lambing. Many pregnant ewes will exhibit this type of pre-maternal behavior when they are close to giving birth. It’s convenient for us – because we know who to keep tabs on.

Lots of sheep will give signs that they are close to birth. They will start to lie down apart from the rest of the sheep. Usually, within a day, they have a lamb to take care of.


It’s amazing how independent lambs become quickly. In their first couple days of life, they are always beside their mama. As a week goes by, they start cavorting and snoozing with the other lambs.

Missing Their Work

The dogs miss having the sheep close to our house. Our winter greenhouse barn is 5 miles from our farmhouse – on the farm The Farmer grew up on. It would be a lot easier to be able to walk out the door in the middle of night to check the sheep and any new arrivals. Instead, when lambing is in full gear, like it has been this week, The Farmer hops in his truck in the middle of the night, drives 10 minutes and hopes that his flashlight holds out while he checks for problems.

I feel a bit guilty being snug under the covers while he does his 2 a.m. crawl but I’m not about to get up and do it! After lambing slows down a bit, he won’t have to get up in the middle of the night.


The dogs have been missing the sheep terribly. Border collies are incredibly intense dogs – always needing a job of some kind. Walks are important for the dogs this time of year since their main form of exercise – the sheep herding – is in hiatus during the non-grazing months. I took them up the road in a snow squall the other day. It was beautifully gray.


In five minutes, the snow cleared and the hills looked so lovely.


The lambing barn is no place for the dogs. But today, The Farmer tried to take Nessie down there anyway – seeing that she is starting to go nutty with not much to do except run circles around the chicken pen. He thought it might work now that she is a bit older and more mature. He was back in twenty minutes. The mamas went nuts – stamping their feet and generally expressing their hatred of that Border Collie hanging around their babies. Guess I had better get she and hobbling Phoebe out for another walk before our next snow storm.

Fast and Furious Lambing Season

We’ve had a busy few days of lambing. So busy that we have lost count and the red and blue sheep numbering system seems to have fallen by the wayside somewhat. (I’m thankful for that and so are my photos!) Wednesday there were ten lambs born. We lost two from the previous week. They weren’t healthy and couldn’t survive despite extra milk fed via a feeding tube. It happens. You get used to it. Not that it is easy. It’s always sad to find a dead lamb. But it is part of the job. When you are expecting over 100 lambs, you know that not all will survive.


Thursday we had nine lambs born. Friday there were seven lambs. Saturday morning (when I am writing this) there were three more and the day is young. We lost a very small twin today – it has been in the house for a couple days. At first we thought it might make it but he developed pneumonia and couldn’t survive. Sweet little thing – rest in peace.


Here are some lamb photos for you to enjoy and share with your children. I’ve been hearing from so many of you that your kids are enjoying out lambing season. It makes me feel good that I can use this blog to share our little bit of farm living with so many families and fiber friends.

The numbering system began in good faith but by Wednesday, when 10 lambs were born – it bit the dust. The plan was to number each mother with a number and then give the baby or babies the same number. The Farmer used a marking paint he bought from Pipestone, a sheep supply company. The paint washes out when the wool is cleaned.

Here She Is Again

I think they all are getting a little tired of me and the camera. And it has only just begun.

Newborns

Here's a lovely set of twins that are only a day old.


In less than a week, it will be tough to catch them lying down so peacefully.

Lunch

Here's a hungry set of twins sneaking a bit of lunch.


Lambs are all about lunch.

First Lamb

Here's our first lamb of our 2009 season. He is one of a set of twins. The #1 on his side in red paint identifies him as first lambs by the number. The red color means he is a twin.


I'm not so happy about that red paint. It makes my photos look awful. The blue isn't much better. I'm still negotiating with The Farmer - it's his bit of organization to the upcoming hysteria of 100 plus lambs.