Some shearing day moments...

One of the shearers giving Demi's daughter a massage. She put this little lamb to sleep while mom was getting her spa treatment.

Chocolate Bar and Magnus after their haircuts

One of the new boys on the shearing table. It was much easier on the humans to be working at table height and the alpacas didn't seem to mind any more than in the past when we didn't use it, I think we may have even been done a little earlier this year.

I've been spinning some of this fleece and MMMmmmmmmm it's nice!

Playing Catch Up

This is a little of what I've been doing instead of blogging.

It's raining, there must be a new lamb in the barn :)

It's another ewe lamb! We've only had one ram lamb from Chocolate Bar so far this year. Their fleeces look nice and consistent front to back, and a couple of them are soooo plush. MMMmmmmmm, I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Only a couple of ewe's to go now. There are so many things I'm planning on doing better next year but over all it's been good.

My special little lamb cookie

Do you know how sometimes you just know that God loves you!
I mean, not in a generic,
I've been raised to believe this, kind of way - but - more personal.
When you know He's paying attention to all the details of your life
and anticipating your needs,
like when I see my kids working really hard
and getting tired or discouraged so I do something extra
to love on them...
like that kind of love. Some special thing that shows them
I'm paying attention to them... I'm listening to them...

Since this is our first lambing season, I don't have anything
to compare it to but it has been really easy
other than the sleep deprivation :)
Nothing dramatic, just plain and simple births.
Yesterday morning, I finally "slept in" (all the way until 6)
... anyway, I woke to the most frantic barking from Basa so
I slipped on some shoes and ran to the barn in my pj's.
-not recommended by the way-
before I was even really awake. When I got there,
I was looking around trying to figure out what
was causing her such distress but bless her heart,
Basa seemed to assume that since I arrived
I would take care of things and she quieted down.

So I'm looking around, counting sheep and lambs
and trying to wake up enough to figure out
what the problem is,
when I realized there was an 'extra' white lamb
and it was in a water bucket right near my feet.
Without thinking, I reached down and scooped
to lift it out but my hand got tangled.
There was a piece of twine around its jawline
holding it's head up, so I untangled us and when I lifted,
well, you know how a wet towel feels
when it can't hold any more water and is just SO heavy,
that's what this little lamb felt like.

I started feeling like God loved me so much as soon as
I realized, my hand wasn't cold.
The lamb had gotten in the only heated water bucket
on the sheep side of the barn.

I'll never know how she got in there!
but I do know, that piece of twine
(that I was sure we'd cleaned out of the barn)
was holding her head out of the water.
It wasn't around her neck to choke her in any way,
it was just below her jaw at the perfect height
to keep her head up out of the water.
Remember, we raise Shetlands,
so even the smallest heated buckets are about
chin deep on a lamb and this was a newborn.

We had just emptied the lambing jugs and
prepped them for their next guests the night before
and I had even left a clean towel in the barn
no, we don't provide maid service :)
the towel was there from a previous birth
when it wasn't needed, so
everything I wanted was right there.

I was able to get mama and baby under the heat lamp
in a nice, deep bedded, clean lambing jug
after soaking up as much water as I could with that towel
and by then Del had already walked the dogs
and come to check on me in the barn.
He went back to the house for the lambing bag
and the hair dryer(and a cup of coffee! what a guy!)
while I stayed with our newest lamb.

We were able to get her dry and warm and
she's had no trouble at all.
As a matter of fact, while she was figuring out where
to nurse, she stamped her little hoof at her mama
for shifting away from her.
She's a pretty determined little lady,
and I just love her to pieces.

Did you notice the spot on her hip?
It's about the size, shape and color
of a Nilla Wafer cookie
and since this is an "N" year for us ...

Lambing Continues

Margie, this one's for you :) a close up of the lace project. It's just pinned out so it will look better once I get it all done and wet finish it.

Basa and her girls out enjoying the sunshine and grass for a bit.

Louise just can't seem to get that little lamb to come with her to the field! He wants to check out everything else, including Del. Basa decided to see if her help was needed...

This is our first little ram lambs first day out of the lambing jug and Alicia just couldn't resist comming over to check him out. I think he liked that attention, he kept running back to the fence every time Louise tried to get him to follow her to the thick grass.

I can never quite catch Demi and her little girl sleeping but this time I did snap the picture before they got up.

Our newest lamb

Just a quick picture of our newest little lamb.

More Lambs

Actually, this is a better picture of Basa our WONDERFUL maremma, but you can see the lamb behind her in the small pen. Basa is so good with the lambs! She helps the ewes keep track and the first time one of the lambs figured out how to escape the pen (of course in the dark of night and yes, a black lamb ;) ) Basa made such a racket we came rushing out to the barn to check things out and were able to get the lamb back with mama in just a few minutes.

This is Demi and her new ewe lamb. She looks especially messy but she's mostly soaking wet! We haven't had a downpour like this in a while and so, of course, another lamb. Thankfully my daughter was here and helped me get mama and baby in the barn with a heat lamp and some deep hay and we were able to make sure she was nursing and not just sucking on wet fleece . . .
I was trying to get this picture up while she was still the newest lamb. . . but that was a couple of days ago and we now have another sweet lamb. Can someone please tell me why the ewe's think the nasty weather is the time to lamb??? On the up side, I've heard we might get snow this weekend, maybe we'll have another lamb or two :)