Getting Ready

According to my careful record keeping (HA!) notes on last years calendar the sheep are going to start dropping babies soon. Like this weekend. That means the logical thing for me to do would be to start getting ready for the blessed occasions.

This will be the first time we've lambed when it's cold and muddy. Before we've always had late spring or early fall lambs where the weather was not a problem. Although for selling purposes that probably wasn't such a good thing since the 4-H kids already had their lambs by then. Of course it didn't really matter so much then because I could always take the lambs to the auction. But now that the auction yard is closed I'm hoping they still won't be too late for the fair going kids, even though that is still a possibility. If I remember correctly we used to buy Carli's 4-H lambs at the end of February. With any luck all our lambs will be born within the next two weeks and I'll be able to wean/sell them by the end of March.

I hope that's not too late.

And so in keeping with the imminent births I got the barn ready. At least one side. I spread fresh straw out so that the first one will be able to lamb on nice straw instead of cold dirt.

My records indicate that the first one to lamb should be Francine. Her due date is February 15th. Of course she could go earlier or later. But I did notice she is starting to bag up (her udder is filling), which is usually a good indicator that she'll be lambing soon. There are exceptions to that rule, and her mother (Ewenice) is one of those.

Here you can see the beginnings of her udder filling with milk.

I know the picture isn't that great for comparison's sake but here's Baby, who I did not breed this last time. Her udder is nowhere to be seen. (It would be in that dark area that's all flat up against her belly.)
I show Jamie's due date to be February 19th, and 3of4's due date at February 24th. Some how I totally missed marking Ewenice's date, but from the looks of her she'll be in the mix with the rest of them.

I don't know what happened with Ladysmith, the cow. I though for sure she would have had her baby by now. In fact I thought she would be due last November/December. Obviously I didn't pay very close attention. I'm sure she is pregnant though. I just don't know when she'll be calving.

This picture doesn't show it too well but there are times when her abdomen just looks huge. I've been keeping my eye on her and checking for changes in her back end. So far just a teensy bit of puffiness. Ladysmith is another last minute udder filler. One day she will be loose and saggy and the next morning there will be a calf on the ground and her udder is grotesquely swollen and uncomfortable looking. So for Ladysmith I have to keep checking the "puff factor", which is her best indicator of impending calving.

In my other getting ready news I had wanted to start getting our garden ready for planting. It may be a bit early for summer stuff, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to start getting it ready. Our little Mantis tiller that we've had for umpteen years finally took a dump. Even though our garden isn't really big I couldn't imagine turning everything over with a shovel. By hand.

Are you joking? I love power tools so that is just out of the question. I decided to take a few hundred dollars out of my not-so-secret vacation stash and buy a real rototiller. Sears said it should be here and ready for pick up on Friday, just in time to get busy over the weekend. That is, if it's not pouring rain...

And speaking of the weather, we had snow on the mountains which always makes it look like we live in Colorado or somewhere similar.

We even had snow in Taft, a little town about 40 minutes away, and they had to close some of the roads out there!

Any precipitation we get is welcome. We really need it. I remember the winters when I had to build a "boardwalk" to get to the stalls because the pen area in front was so sloppy with deep mud. I haven't had to put my boardwalk out for many years. (I still have it.) The paper this morning mentioned how in spite of our recent rains we are still some 50% below normal.

I hope I have good news to share with you after this weekend!