The Joys of Farming

We now have lambs. Emily and Soren and I have been patiently awaiting the first lambs for a few weeks now. We have had the two Dorset ewes sequestered in lambing pens (I guess that they're technically call Jugs) in the back of the barn for a couple of weeks now. We anticipated them to drop lambs first. But low and behold as the three of us were heading out the driveway to go for a hike on the Ice Age Trail we saw this out in the field:One of our heritage breed Jacobs sheep ewes had dropped a lamb as causal and cool as pouring a cup of coffee. She was happy, the lamb was happy, we were stunned. I slammed on the brakes and we ran out to have a look. She's a happy, healthy little spotted critter that has bonded well to her mama. \
The following day around the same time one of our Dorsets delivered twins. We had just returned from helping out Emily 's sister do some remodeling work on her gallery (http://www.threesisterstudio.blogspot.com/) and went to check on the mamas and found a still wet and wriggling lamb. I assisted with the delivery of her little brother.
It was a family affair, I was in shoulder length rubber gloves, very focused on the everyday miracle of birth. Soren was in the backpack on his Mama's back laughing while Emily coached me through and provided material support.
I'm not so sure my help was needed, but I was there. I pulled the lamb out, broke the amniotic sac, rubbed the little fellar down with straw and poked my fingers up his nose and pulled out liquid until he sneezed and started to breathe.
Now we await the other two ewes to lamb. It could be tonight, and it could be two days from now. Until then we get to enjoy the excitement of three new lives on the farm, get to study up on lactation, milk fever, and the myriad things that can go wrong, and hope that everything goes right.