Three little lambs arrived today.

We welcomed another sweet little lamb to the farm today.  She arrived this morning and was promptly named Opal...  

As I finished writing that sentence my son came running in to say Mom - there's another baby.  Oh dear - we only have one lambing jug set up and this was Mom number two!  We all headed for the barn and a few minutes after we arrived out came number three! One girl named Ruby Mae and one boy we've named Jed.

These are certainly happy days!  The first two years I was so stressed with what could potentially go wrong that it took most of the joy out of the process.  There's always the potential for things to take a wrong turn so it's nothing to take lightly and yet for the most part everything just happens on it's own and personally I think it's best that way.

We bought a beautiful lambing jug from the feed store a few years ago.  It has four parts that clip together like a big 4x4 dog cage with no top or bottom.  It's great but it's on the expensive side so we just bought one and crossed our fingers that no two ewes would lamb out at the same time.  Ha.  Not today.  We have lots of leftover pieces of 4x8 plywood, 2x4's and random other items like wooden doors and heavy cement bricks.  Living on a farm will turn me into a hoarder yet!  Today it came in very handy.  We blocked off a corner in the pen, added a heat lamp, straw, hay and a water bucket and made the "walls" out of the wood.  It's all being held up with chicken crates and a kids wagon.  Creative huh?  and much cheaper too.

I'll be out a few more times tonight checking on the lambs and the mommas. Ruby-Mae seems to be drinking less than Jed and I'm not sure if she just needs a little nap or a little encouragement.  

So we are now the proud owners of 11 sheep.  Who woulda thunk that would happen a few years ago - when I was planning to raise goats!  I'm so glad we didn't!  I love my sheep.  They have taught me by example the meaning of many of the "sheep" verses in the Bible.  They are stubborn, scare easily and can be so sweet and loveable all at the same time.  

I took a few pictures of Hubert this weekend - the lamb born just before Christmas.  He's a huge "little guy"!  His papa is from another farm and I can't believe the size of him!  He's a little shy - it this picture he's hiding behind a friend.

We had some visitors this past weekend.  Too bad they missed the babies!  One special little helper was very good at collecting eggs and feeding treats to the sheep and donkey.