We have been patiently waiting… and today is the day!  Our first lamb of the season was born today.   A little single ram lamb.   We are naming this year’s lambs after herbs!  So he has been christened, Basil.  Sounds like a fine little name for a sheep.

His mother is Emma, a ewe that was born here on the homestead from her mother, Iris.  The ironic thing is that Emma’s ewe lamb from last year is expecting as well, so we will have four generations of sheep very soon!  Great grandma, grandma, mother and baby!!!  Not too bad for only doing this for three years.   Yeah, sheep are quick to be teen moms.

Of course, Queen Buttercup has welcomed the little princeling into the fold in a rather polite manner.   I guess she only hates her OWN babies.  She told me that it was just dreadful, listening to Emma grunt and groan and give birth this morning, it just tuckered her out and brought back horrid memories of her own birthing experience late last summer.   She needs a snack, NOW.   To help lessen the stress of being around another birth.

Buttercup IS our diva, you know.  

One of the things we always do with our ewes is to give them the nozzle check.   Sometimes the lambs are unable to loosen the little wax plug in a teat and you wouldn’t know until after the ewe might develop mastitis or the lamb not thrive.  So we always grab the ewe, and do a little milk check.  Emma was pretty annoyed, but it sure helps to quell any worries one might have!

Emma was a yearling last year and we had a bit of a rough start with her and motherhood.  She had her single ewe daughter, Galadriel, last year.   We had to really work with her for a few days, supplimenting her baby with a bottle and forcing the two to bond.   In the end, it worked and after a week we stopped bottle feeding but still, she was not the greatest mom.  Just didn’t seem to have her noodle wrapped around the whole idea.   But this year?  Huge difference.   She just really seems to know what to do now, and she had the baby cleaned and nursing in no time flat.  And she’s very attentive.   I think she’s going to be a good mom, just like her mother Iris.   Whom is just so ready to have her baby soon…  babies!   She looks like she is carrying twins again.   Time will tell!

Tomorrow is Maggie’s 21st birthday!   I can’t hardly believe it…  I am now the mother of two adults.  Wow.    It would be really cool if Iris had her babies on Maggie’s birthday, don’t you think?   I think so….