As the first few days of May arrive, we find ourselves waiting.   Waiting mostly on babies!  We have had two of our sweet ewes deliver of their babies, but four are still waiting.   And waiting.  It should be any day now.  Miss Bonnie is getting bigger and bigger.  I suspect she might have a pair of twins to show off some day, but then one can never know until they are done!   She’s a big girl to begin with, but still, she’s got quite a low hanging belly and surely has a little extra cargo to carry about.

Every morning, we race out to see how things are.  Someone is out as early as possible, usually by 7 or 8 am.  Our sheep have all lambed between dawn and noon.   It’s weird, none have gone past that noon mark.   I have read that sheep are very good at having their babies in the morning hours.  It’s a sort of protection thing.  It’s light enough for the ewes to be able to see their lambs and clean them up, and  easy for the flock to keep a good watch for predators.  And it gives the youngsters a nearly full day to get their feet under them and ready to join the herd in the evening when they are most vulnerable and need the protection of the pack.  All I know is that our gang, three years running has never once lambed after noon or in the middle of the night.  So we pay good attention to that time of the day for lambing season.

Emma and Basil are doing so well.   She is such a good mom this year.   She finally gets it, I guess!

Iris is still pregnant.   She has twinned every year and sure looks like it this time.   I am hoping for a lovely pair of twin girls!!!  Yes!!!  Have names already picked out.   Of course, this means a single big ram, right???

Awww….  I’m pretty sure that Basil is going to brown up like his momma.  He’s really not solid black at all.   More a dark dark brown.  Shetland change between birth and one year old, so we just won’t know until it’s all over!

Pretty sunrise…

Bunnies snuggling together in the morning sunlight.  These two are friends…

Been washing fleeces from shearing…  this lovely steel gray is from our sweet ewe Beulah!   It’s just so pretty.   Can’t wait to start carding and spinning this wool!

Our baby chicks have graduated to outside life!  Well, halfway outside life.   Maggie moved them to the screen porch for another couple weeks.   They are big enough that they don’t need a heat lamp anymore, but probably not quite big enough to compete well with the big girls in the enclosed coop.   This way they can deal with the dip in temperatures at night and get some sunshine and fresh air, but are not quite in with the adults yet.  They are doing great!  Still have all six of our new little hens…

What a cutie!   I love when we have baby lambs!!!  I think we will always breed babies each year, even if it’s just a couple.   They are so adorable and just love to watch them grow up!

Such beauty in our chicken’s feathers!   This is Copper, our first born rooster at the homestead.  He was hatching in an old styrofoam cooler with a light bulb!   Very high tech!  But, hey, it worked great, we had 100% success rate of the six eggs we put in there.   He was following me around this morning, but I didn’t get a nice shot of all of him…  but this was so pretty, it was okay.

Harley and Angus are settling down nicely in the man pasture up front.  Harley has really calmed down and is actually just getting fat and enjoying retirement.  It’s perfect!  Just what we wanted.  Angus might even be able to go back to his gang of ladies soon.   Our 2015 ram lamb is growing nice and big and in a month or so might even be able to come and join us!  He’s a nice big stout and burley lamb boy and growing so nicely!   I’ll have to post pictures again soon!

More lovely eggs for the incubator!   We are trying to hatch out a bunch of our lovely Marans as well as some of our crossbreeds that we love so…   We shall see!   Got about two more weeks or so before the first hatching times…

So happy to see little buds and leaves on our blueberry plants and others that we planted.   We hope to have some good perrienial fruit going on here at the homestead sooner than later!   Blueberry, raspberry, grape and strawberries have been planted.   Hoping to get a few more fruit trees!  So wish we had done this a couple years ago, but there’s no time like the present and we shall go on from here!   Just happy that it’s growing and settling in nicely.

So happy that Bonnie, our rescue sheep, is really finding her spot in our herd.   She and Buttercup have been being good friends and buddies lately.   Which is nice because Bonnie had a long time goat friend named Bert and Bert passed away suddenly, leaving her alone.   She loves all the sheep but lately, she’s been a little more friendly with Buttercup and it’s cute to watch them nuzzle and hug each other.   Buttercup was even being a goofball one afternoon, and was jumping around and head butting Bonnie in the rump and just being silly with her.   And I actually saw Bonnie be silly back.   Just for a moment.  But it was very special.  I love when the animals form bonds with each other.  It’s so sweet.

Beulah was being a little bit of a lax mom with her baby Thistle, so we locked them up for 24 hours in our makeshift lambing jug.   Basically, it’s just the little sheep shack with water and hay and your baby!   Just helps to ensure that they get a good bond and introduction to each other and their purpose here on this planet.  Beulah is a little bummed, she would rather be hanging with her BFFs Emma and Bonnie.  Motherhood is such a drag sometimes for the first timers.  She will be sprung tomorrow morning, or maybe even this evening if she is doing better with her little babe.

 

And last but least…  this is Bucka Too and his twin ladies.   Dizzy and Lizzy.   They are always together.   He likes them both.  Most of our chickens are locked up because Jessy really just doesn’t like all the birds loose.   We don’t mind at all, because too many loose chickens does seem to draw raccoons and opossum…  it’s not good.   Plus they start to poop all over and crowd you when you walk and such.  We have three roosters and three hens loose.  The other hen, Ninja, she is hanging out with Dammartin.   They were off doing some chicken things somewhere else.

Well, that is the May roundup!   We are having such lovely weather, and getting a few new things done…  just enjoying our little homestead as we get into the nice season of growing!!!

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