major accomplishments

Feeling a bit better because there has been progress around here. Bills are paid (and a credit card theft discovered in the process). Legal work is being done (though much more needs to get done). Barns are being sided (more on that tomorrow). No knitting, and as a matter of fact, a submission deadline missed, but I can live with that because I need to get on top of what I already have, not make more work for myself.

Best of all: lambs are being weaned.

I really do hate this process. HATE IT. Through the fine art of procrastination, I gave them every opportunity to do it on their own. They are four months old at this point! The ewes should have mostly taken care of it themselves. But our ewes are really devoted mothers, which is a double-edged sword. Their degree of attentiveness to their lambs makes a big difference in early lamb survival and growth, but weaning is a PITA as a result. County fair is less than three weeks away, however, and those udders need to be mostly gone and the lambs used to being on their own.

We have found it is least stressful for the lambs to pull the moms out and leave the lambs with the rest of the flock. The hollering began as soon as the moms were led away and has been sustained, at varying decibels, for the last 36 hours. They cannot see each other, but they can certainly hear each other.

The dialogue goes like this:

(bass voice from the ewe pasture): "BAAAAAAAAAA."

(answering chorus of two from the back pasture): "mmmmaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!"

Then a different bass voice from the ewe pasture.... answered by a different twin chorus from the back... and so on and so forth. So loud, that though we are enjoying unseasonably low humidity and temperatures, we couldn't leave our windows open last night because we wouldn't have been able to sleep in peace.

Don't feel too bad. The lambs are doing fine.

And the ewes are too, though they won't admit it because they are pretty mad at us at the moment.