at last

In my dream last night, there were two white lambs waiting for me in the barn. Charlie the grumpy old dog woke me up at 5 am, an hour earlier than usual, and I decided I had better not ignore the signs. Good thing, too, because guess what was waiting for me in the barn?

A ram and a ewe! (Before you go asking me to predict the future, I should confess that my dream wasn't really that prescient. The ewe was due today (based on the date she was marked), she almost always has twins, and both parents are white.)

Clover is a good mom, and she had done a great job in getting the lambs up and cleaned off. I estimate the lambs were born less than an hour before I got there, but the umbilical cords were already frozen solid (making it tough for me to get them clipped off), the tips of their ears and tails and backs of their legs were covered in ice, and they were both shivering. The little ewe had to come in under the bathroom heat lamp* for a little while to deice, but once she was dry she was taken back out to mom for more milk.

The rhododendron sympathizes with her.

I have finally defrosted as well, and I am wearing my sheepy best to celebrate the arrival of the first (and possibly last? we're still not sure) lambs of the season.

(Sweater was made by my mom, using the Fiber Trend's Sheep Go Round pattern. Photo method was swiped from Crazy Aunt Purl, but she does a much better job with it.)

* Just in case you think that is a people bathroom towel she is standing on, let me reassure you that it is one of our extensive collection of barn towels. I must admit, however, that my MIL generously gave me her towel cast-offs for the barn a few years ago, but her cast-offs were much better than the ones we used every day. We ended up keeping her towels in the house and sending ours to the barn.