Lightning

Just out from The Community Baa Farm....Rainy our 1 year old ewe, just gave birth last night in the middle of a thunder, lightning & rain storm in our little farm in our backyard. The ram lamb came one month earlier than planned. My husband came up to the house after working on building a chicken coop THE WHOLE DAY, and said "hey Jess, I think Rainy is lambing." (So that's what that funny sound was coming from the barn an hour ago.) I was standing on our back deck watching my husband work, and conjecturing what that funny sounding baa was, coming from one of the sheep. Maybe a chicken flew over the fence and was freaking them out in the barn.

Note to self....

check on the sheep IMMEDIATELY, when you hear funny baa noises coming from the barn.

So, Matt & I ended up helping Rainy lamb. It was quite the adventure. I have graduated to "doula" status on this little farm of ours, and I'm not going to live it down easy. My husband officially considers me a "domestic goddess," and I think I earned that title last night. If it weren't for me, I think Rainy might not have nursed her baby and we would have been bottle feeding him every 3-5 hours for the next 3 months. Tell me THAT wouldn't be a nightmare!

Cooking dinner and taking care of Mt. Vesuveus laundry piles is nothing compared to lambing a sheep. Lambing a sheep is just like birthing a real baby. Getting a ewe to nurse is more difficult than getting a woman to nurse her offspring, because the ewe does not listen to you! Although I must say...sheep are not as stupid as many accuse them to be. Rainy listened to me every time she started to stray and I told her to "clean her baby." She went right back to licking off the afterbirth. We also had the pleasure of pulling the lamb out of Rainy's womb, and cutting the umbilical cord. We were covered in blood and gore from head to toe. How embarassing. 2:30am pillow time came just at the right time. We were exhausted!

So, from the community baa to you..."what doesn't kill you, gives you a kick-butt story to tell."

ps. 'Lightning' is a beautiful baby boy with a long white-tipped, black tail. How sweet it is!