I finally have some baby lambs...

I have been waiting & waiting & waiting & waiting -
Finally ~ a set of twin buck lambs.

When I went to the barn this morning to do chores, I was missing one of my ewe's. She wasn't in the herd. It always makes me kind of sick in my stomach when one is missing, but I knew I had one ewe really close to giving birth. I walked across the pasture with Charlie at my side making his alpaca "Charlie" noises. When I got close to the irrigation ditch, my young ewe jumped out of the ditch and ran over to me. I heard the little ones making their little bah'ing noises and peeked down in the ditch.

She was smart to have the little lambs in the ditch, out of the wind and in the sand. It was a great warm spot when the sun came up. The only problem was their little legs just weren't long enough so they could get out of the ditch...

I lifted them up and set them by their mom and both are big, healthy, buck lambs. They immediately started to wag their little tails and nurse. That's when you know they're going to be just fine...

Mom let me carry them over to the barn for her. She was happy to show them off to some of the rest of my girls, although I'm sure they already know the miracle of life took place early this morning.

I was wondering what was going on. Mooch woke me up 3 times last night. He wasn't barking, or excited, he would just walk up to the gate and stand there staring over at the sheep, so I didn't worry - nothing bad was happening, or he would have been upset. He must have been monitoring the situation as it was happening and I was just too tired to take notice?

When mom went to eat, I sat the little lambs on my lap, on the straw in the sun and just sat there with my eyes shut enjoying a beautiful, chilly Autumn morning with beautiful, snow white lambs on my lap.

Of course, they stay close to Charlie when their mom is not right by them. It's the strangest dynamic. I don't know if it's because Charlie is so tall and big, or what, but, all the lambs always gravitate to him and he always, always watches all the lambs.. Lots of times you can walk over to check on things when there are a lot of lambs and baby's are sound asleep, snuggled up next to Charlie.

Charlie knows he's special...

 He's just a 'little' spoiled...

~Just a little - Can you tell?~

And Gertie and her 3 little chicklets are doing just fine locked in the hen house for a few days. She's just taken ownership of her new digs. I open the hen house door and there she is puffed up. When she stands, these three little black chucks come running out just chattering - telling long, long stories about their night.

I already have 15 chickens - it's going to be IMPOSSIBLE for me to part with Gertie's babies. What in the world am I going to do with 18 chickens?