Midnight lambing!

Remember these guys, born just yesterday?Well I was just about to finish up on my laptop and go to bed a bit early, listening to the wind get up a bit higher and being very very sleepy, when I heard clattering and clunking outside in the bit of shed-building that's almost attached to my bit and where Mrs Sheep and her two babes are currently ensconced. Oooh I thought, I wonder if something's gone over... hope the sheeps are okay... And I thought I'd better go and check, cos I'm a good girl. *g* It wasn't the wind though, it was Landlord, setting up a second sheep pen, because - on the night we're forecast rain and gales - the second of their four sheep had just decided to have her lamb, and it was already looking a bit peaky and mum was just being hungry not paying much attention, and do you need a hand with anything? says I? If you wouldn't mind helping us get them in, says Landlord, We need all the help we can get...

So off we tromped to the field in the dark, and picked up the lamb, and encouraged mumma along with sheep nuts and a good hold on her, and some encouraging shoves behind - she didn't want to come - and eventually managed to get them both indoors... and then she didn't seem at all interested in him... ... ...and we wondered whether to get the other two sheep in, just in case they chose the same lousy night... and we watched to see if mumma had another one coming, and whether lamb would start to feed, and it didn't, and the recommendations were after two hours give them a feed with a tube, and the time came and went, and Landlord decided to go for it, and it's not all dip-your-finger-in-milk-and-let-it-suckle, it's tube-down-the-throat-to-the-stomach stuff, which he took really well, and then we watched to see if he perked up... and then decided to get the other two sheepses into Landlord's garden at least, so they'd be closer anyway if they needed moving to the lambing shed, and... phew! And then mumma delivered her placenta, and Landlord was a goodun and cleaned it up for her (though she got a few nibbles in before that...)

Luckily the weather's held - it's been really windy, but it's almost balmy with it, not cold. Only - you see the trio of dots up there? That's where I suddenly heard lots of loud bleating from the lambing shed as I was typing this, and decided (again) that I'd better go check, and I was just peering in and trying to work out what was wrong, and realising that my back was getting really wet now cos the rain had come, when landlord appeared through the window on the other side, and realised what the problem was. The lamb I was looking at wasn't lamb, it was one of the day-old cousins who'd somehow got through from his pen to the new pen... So he rescued him, and here I am again, having even made up a hot water bottle after all, cos brrrr.

Phew! Mind you, now I feel like I live in Somerset... *g*

I'm awake in the Virtual Office Tuesday honest

Yaaaaaaaawn...

Okay - we have baby lambs safe in shed (I know, you can only really see the mums - it's mum-on-the-left whose lamb we were feeding last night. I don't know yet if he's feeding...) ...and we have very blue skies!

We also have slates off the roof (of the lamb-shed, actually - and if they'd come off the other side they might well have done for my car. Eeeep!) ...and although I thought I'd see if it was worth trying, since we have sun and wind, it might really be a bit too windy for putting washing out to be a good idea!

We have a headache and sore eyes, we have lots of work to do, but we have paracetamol and sunshine, so... let's see. *g*

Today's Tasks
Fiddle Practice
Post-new-lamb-carrying laundry!
Check lamb!
Work pgs 1-10 (11.36-12.46) Slow start as always.
Fiddle practice
Work pgs 11-18 (1.00-1.30)
Lunch
Fiddle practice
Return email about NT conservation volunteering
Work pgs 1-10 (2.20-3.20)
Arranged conservation volunteer taster morning at Stourhead
Work pgs 11-20
Work pgs 21-27
Fiddle Practice
Fiddle lesson
Supermarket
Work pgs 1-10
Dinner
Work pgs 11-21
Waters and the Wild