What a whirlwind the last 3 weeks have been! Lambing season at WoollyShire has come to an end. I just have to keep these buggers alive. The season ended with a grand total of 7 lambs (4 girls and 3 boys). The flock has grown to a robust 13.

Banana Pop was the last to pop and she lambed before I woke. My normal morning routine is to let the dogs out for the usual business and then walk over to the barn to make sure no sheep are hanging from the rafters. I saw a lamb laying by Banana Pop and thought to myself, well, isn’t that cute..one of the lambs is hanging out with Banana Pop. As if getting hit over the head with a shovel, my light bulb turned on and I realized that Banana Pop had a lamb. Having no clue as to where we were at in the lambing process, I ran back inside and hollered, “Banana Pop is having babies. This is not a drill.”

Grabbing all of my recently sanitized gear, I ran back to the barn and sat on a straw bale in my llama pajama pants waiting to see where we were at in the process. Anti-climatic…Banana Pop and her mini me just sat there looking back at us. Another shovel must have hit me in the head because I realized there was nothing to see here. Banana Pop had finished lambing and she did not need any shepherd’s assistance. HOORAY! She must have lambed over an hour ago because the baby was already beginning to dry off and was in a milk coma. Tommy and I weighed the female lamb of 11 lbs. and settled them into the lambing jug with grain, alfalfa hay and molasses water.

That morning I finished up feeding all of the other woolly & feathered friends and made myself breakfast. Washing up after the excitement, I became flushed with emotion and cried. Not ugly crying but tears of accomplishment. Four years ago, I began my journey of trying to figure out if I was enamored by sheep or if I truly desired to have sheep. Bringing any animal home should never be because of infatuation. I did my research by attending a sheep workshop, dragging Tommy along to interview local farms, and deciding on what type of sheep is the sheep for me.

Before the sheep workshop, I had never handled sheep. Often I am asked WHY SHEEP? Well, they aren’t too big-I am only 5’2” so the intimidation factor is lessened. My sheep are dairy sheep and I love milk and cheese. And something about a sheep’s personality rang true to me-not too personable at first but always interested in food. Sounds like I should have been a sheep!

I am sure I did some other stuff the past 3 weeks. Plotted out the potager garden, dreamed about lambs, broke out the weed eater, acquired 7 baby chicks, baked my first homemade loaf of bread, set up a shearing date for the sheep, procrastinated and saw the Barn Swallows move back into the barn to have summertime babies.

Besides hanging out with lambs, my next week will be filled with gardening and devising ways to keep the chickens out of the garden!

Happy Gardening, pals!

Hard to tell if Donuts is excited about his new charges!

How many lambs in this photo? I counted 6.

Marmalade with her 2 lambs, Sugar Cookie & brother