Saturday

Bright, early, and cold we headed out to the farm. I pushed a bit of hay to the horses and then we hauled corn and fed alfalfa to the outside sheep.

Sorry, guys - no corn for you. You'll have to make do with your alfalfa bale.

The lambs, mostly too small to enjoy getting corn just yet, scurried and scampered out of the way of their mamas rush to the corn feeders. These aren't first-year ewes. Most of them are fairly massive, and the majority out weigh me by a fair amount. I made the mistake of being first in with a bucket, and found myself nearly swept off my feet. With a seething mass of wooliness thigh high all around me, the only thing that kept me upright was the lack of space to fall down.

T, bless him, stood by the gate laughing at me, because once I'd dumped the grain out I was stuck - wedged against the feeder by sheep shoulders. Their bellies are so round that there was space by the feeder, but I couldn't squeeze myself through the press to escape.

He finally took pity on me and dumped his buckets in the other feeder, causing a rush in that direction.

Tractor surgery was next. The battery terminals on the tractor were bad, and we weren't sure about the battery. Turned out it needed a new block heater cable, too.
Back after retrieving the tractor necessities, there were new lambs. Unfortunately, several of them were already dead - even inside the barn with the lamp heaters, it's just so cold...

This one was still fighting, but mama was more interested in already dead sibling to care. In the vet room where it's warm we got it dried off, a bit of milk down it, and hoped for the best.Aiysha curled up next the the little guy and washed his ears - I figured her body heat sure couldn't hurt.

With as much done on that front as we could, we headed over the the vet's to get chores done there. All was peaceful. So after one last lamb check (still hanging in there) we headed home.