Gettin' Things Done

Today Mike took off work, and worked.

This morning began with a visit from the vet. She confirmed that Confetti is indeed pregnant and will have the cria at the end of this month. She's due 4/28-5/1. Unfortunately, Starr is not pregnant after all. We'll try again next month and wait a year to see what happens!

After the vet check, the girls enjoyed some free time in their grazing pasture.

 Starr 

Confetti

Then, because THE PLAN has failed, we put up a permanent gate for the barn.

Here are Peridot and Emerald showing off the new gate.And I worked at preparing the back field for the animals. There were some tall weeds left from last year, so we rigged up a piece of chain link fence to drag behind the tractor. I love driving the tractor.

The back field nice and flat.And Morgan got to help as well. She worked the bucket to help pull up some old T-posts.

What a great work day! Lots accomplished and tired kids!

It's Killing Me!

The waiting, that is!

Sparkles' lambs will be a week old tomorrow (tonight at 3 am, actually, but who's counting?) and Emerald and Peridot are still pregnant.

Peridot this morning

Emerald this morning.The plan was:

All lambs would come within 3-4 days of one another. All ewes and lambs would be in the barn for a week and a half. Then ALL the sheep could be turned loose on the fields at the same time.

Someone didn't get the memo. And now the ewes are going stir-crazy, and the lambs need to run free.

So today, I had to do some very complicated maneuvering. The main problem: the barn doesn't have a door (because we'll be expanding it again once the weather warms up), so we have a giant piece of plywood screwed-in to block the entrance. This would be fine if everyone had adhered to THE PLAN.

Never fear! I came up with a solution.

I moved Knox into the chicken coup (the chickens were not very happy with this situation).

The llamas were released into their temporary grazing area consisting of only two strands of electric wire that's not actually turned on. It's really just a suggestion to them, and if they wanted out, it would be pretty easy. I usually put them in there for an hour or two while I'm out doing chores in order to keep an eye on them. The sheep get to use it occasionally, but Knox has been banned due to his blatant disrespect of the non-threatening wires. This is what it looked like the day we set it up.

I then went into the barn, scooped up the lambs and had Sparkles follow me (well, the lambs) out the front door of the barn, around a set of pine trees, through the pasture gate and into the field. Luckily, she's the queen bee, and Emerald and Peridot followed her.

Once they were secured in the field, I pulled Knox (good thing he has horns and is still pretty small) out of the coup and into the secure barn.

Everyone is happy for the day, but tonight I'll have to do all this again in reverse. 

The ewes need to lamb!