Now where was I...

A frosty morning

Of course it does not seem like a week since I last posted, because it wasn't. My last post was delayed because of work that needed doing and then a lamb being born. As I mentioned last week, we waited and waited for number two to be born or for the mum to pass the placenta, and that wasn't happening. We were having to do our observations by torch light by this time. In the end we had to call our friend out and he found out there was some sort of plug, that fortunately didn't seem infected but seemed to be holding up proceedings. At least after that was removed all went fine and the mother bonded well with the baby and baby was suckling fine. There was no number two lamb, but that is proably a good thing in this weather.

Lady V stretching her back

Looking decidedly unpregnant at this stage of the stretch, unlike other times. So we still don't know

A particularly frosty day

Mother and baby are still in the chicken house because it is too cold over the next couple of days to let her out, but when it warms up mother and daughter will be allowed out. Yesterday we also had some more births. Unfortunately these are not doing so well. It looks like one of them may have got trampled, possibly by the ewe who still hasn't given birth yet (the one we expected to give birth first and is still waiting). The other lamb seemed to have been neglected by the mother, which is odd as she was the only one last year to display any mothering tendencies at all. Our friend who helps run the sheep farm nearby, says we have particularly dumb sheep. Yay! Explains why nothing seems to be easy with them.

Lamb no. 1 on her first day

Amazing structures

As you do! A lamb in the apartment

Ian has managed to get some milk down the little one and got it to suckle on the mother but overnight it managed to get away from its mum. To stop the other ewe who hasn't given birth from constantly butting the lamb he had but some haybales between them, but somehow the little one had managed to squeeze through a hole to the wrong side, so this morning it was rather cold and looked weak. Ian wrapped it up and put it on the radiator to warm through and then got some sugared and salted water down it. Our friend came back out to help again and whilst trying to work it out someone called from America and it just so happens he is on a sheep farm out there at the moment. That particular farming family have been sheep farming for over 150 years so they know a thing or two. Turns out the little thing may have got a pneumonia, which I'm not surprised about. Hopefully the penicillin it was given will have an effect, as will bringing it home in the warmth and giving it some extra feed - if it will take the powdered formula that is. It knows its mum's milk, that's for sure, as it drank all that Ian had managed to get from the mother but refuses the powdered stuff. It's sleeping now.

Standing up in the box looking alert yesterday

During the day on the radiator. He didn't stir for two hours

Chanel's snow'tache

Anyway back tracking a bit. It has been a fairly mundane week apart from all the excitement of the lambs being born. As I said I travelled back from Estonia on the Tuesday and this time all the connections were as they should be. I found a little cafe to get a coffee on the way home, which was handy as I didn't want to go to my normal restaurant stop off, just for a coffee. The only slight hiccup was one family diving in front of me in a queue. Here in Latvia (and Estonia), if you pre-buy a ticket you are given a number and the driver calls out the numbers so you get on in order of number called. I am quite often near the front and so I get in place, then I can hear the driver calling the numbers, so I was a little irritated with a family who jumped in front of me. I then had to make my way around them when, sure enough, the driver called my number out first. I do not know why they usually start at number 3 or 4, rather than 1, but that's the way it is. At least they had to wait their turn, because the driver doesn't let them on otherwise.

It snowed, can you tell?

Aggie still has the lump on the side of her face, but looks happier in herself

 

 

 

 

The rest of the week was mainly taken up with getting work done and I managed to get all that was on my list to do done by Friday. I had to work out in the caravan on Friday because Aggie needed her penicilin injection and I have to help Ian to hold her. So rather than travelling backwards and forwards from home, I just make sure I am bundled up in enough layers to stay warm and get on with work out there. Aggie really does not like me now, but heh! she's getting better and more sprightly, apart from the occasional off day anyway.

The fleece grows well in winter, this Brencis'

She might look a bit silly in this photo but we are happy to see her moving the side of her jaw. The week before last she was sruggling

Saturday and Sunday I made a point of staying away from the computer most of the time. I have been doing some sorting out and trying to get some sort of organisation of the amount of stuff we have accumulated over the last nine years. It is hard! I have now sorted through the paperwork and got a box full of paper that will either be useful for lighting fires or be shredded for use in the chickens arks. I have also started on cleaning fleeces so that they can be used as batting for lined waistcoats (vests-American). Gosh they are dirty! Along with dealing with some more of the stored apples before they go off, heating up our other apartment so we don't have frozen pipes and keeping us fed that is about it for this week.

Mr. P. sure stands out against the snow

Just to finish off with, whilst sorting out paperwork, I found a prayer dairy from 1991/1992 and it is scary to think I was younger than two of my own children are now. We had all three children by then and I was 27 years old in 1991. There was a lot of talk of playgroup and I started to do some childminding of my daughter's teacher's little girl. So many emotions and anxious thoughts due to money worries and just learning to bring up the children. It is a good job I did not know where life would lead me then, I would have been pertified. It was good to have friends around us though who prayed and supported us, even as they were going through similar stages of life.