Meet Fosco (he's brand new)

Shebaa lambed this morning and the trick’s on us. Instead of giving birth to her usual set of lovely twins, she presented me (after a long delivery at that) with one jumbo-size white ram lamb (that's him above, thinking, "Is that what I'm looking for?"). He’s very nice and his mama loves him dearly but I had my heart set on a ewe lamb to keep for my flock. Oh well.

The new guy delivered hind feet first and is so huge that he got stuck, so I had to assist by gently pulling him.

He’s a little slow (his umbilical was compressed against his mom’s pelvis during birth) but he’ll grow out of it. I named him Fosco after the Guinness-drinking ram who won the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest in Leonie Swann's charming mystery book starring sheep, Three Bags Full. It'll give him something to aspire to.

John suggested that if we don’t sell him as a lamb we might keep him since he’s out of one of my best producers, has unique grey markings on his legs, and I don’t have a white ram of my own. We'll see.

(Getting back to) Taking care of business.

I’m back to blogging after a long hiatus. I’ve been awfully busy this winter and the old ones’ deaths took the wind out of my sails. Today would have been Baasha’s 14th birthday. I really miss that sweet old girl.

However, yesterday I put Mopple on a lead and discovered he’s forgotten quite a bit since last fall, so now I’m chomping at the bit to get him back on track. I find he’s doing better wearing a halter than a collar and fortunately the alpaca halter I keep for my Classic/Miniature Cheviots fits him to a tee.

On the sheepy front, two of my ewes are fit to burst with lambs. I expect the older ewe, Shebaa (Wolf Moon Findabar; pictured near the top of this entry), to lamb within 24 hours because she’s all hollowed out and her udder is fairly bursting.

The other ewe, Wren (Wolf Moon Wren, pictured in profile) is due on the 10th. Both are bred to Maxx (Wolf Moon Fin Bheara), our young, spotted ram. The lambs will be his first offspring, so I’m really looking forward to their arrival. They are 3/4 sisters, both out of old Rebaa (Coats' High Ridge Farm's Rosy Lolita), so they are Baasha's grand-daughters. Maxx's mom is Wolf Moon Baatiste, so Baasha is his maternal grand-dam too.

Let there be lambs!