Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Shepherdess in the Making

If you've been watching the news at all, then you've probably heard that the East Coast is getting pretty battered right now with a series of snowstorms. Last Saturday we had a particularily intense one that ended up dropping two feed of snow on us. I'm from the Midwest and I still haven't seen that much snow on the ground in my life.

It just so happened that we ended up getting a bit more of an adventure than a snowstorm. We raise sheep, and most of our ewes are pregnant. Early Saturday morning we woke up to find one of the ewes missing. A frantic search ensued (which you can read about in detail on Regina Doman's house blog - http://houseartjournal.blogspot.com/2010/02/snowy-day-and-lost-sheep.html ) that ended up in the eventually discovery of not only our missing ewe, but our very first lamb.



My family has raised a total of four sheep, so I've been around them before and like them a lot. They're very mild-tempered animals, and I love the way they look and everything. It was an absolutely amazing experience to be a part of. Going out into snow that was over my knees, and walking for what seemed forever, and finally finding a newborn lamb.



I can't quite tell what a wonderful feeling it was to come to the rescue of that baby. Especially to be the first human to make contact with it. I loved it. I feel incredibly blessed that God allowed me to have this experience. It has definetely increase my love of sheep, and my appreciation for those who raise them.



The baby (whom we named "Twitchet") is now four days old and leaping and frisking all over his pen. He is unbelieveably adorable! He's very tame and curious. When we go in the pen he will sniff around us and be very friendly.

We have two other ewes that we are watching in the garage. They're both very pregnant, but we're not exactly sure when they'll be birthing, so we just keep an eye on them. They're very wild so we can't really examine them either, but we hope that by seeing us interact with Twitchet and his mom these other ewes will get used to the idea of having humans around when their babies arrive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It looks soooo cute!