The Circle of Life

And so it goes on the farm.  On Tuesday morning I came suddenly awake at 5am and I knew in that way that you know that they were here.  I put my coat on over my pj's and grabbed my headlamp and there they were.  Eirina, my beautiful white mama had twins.  And she had them in the fashion she usually does - with no help or fanfare.  By 5am, they had both been born, and well licked off.  A moorit (brown) female and a white male.  Judging from dampness, the girl was born first.  This is her first set of twins.  As a ewe lamb herself she had Lifa and then last year she had Euclid.

This is Astrid.  She will be remaining on the farm.  I had decided that if Brida didn't have lambs again this year, I would keep a ewe lamb.  Its perfect that that she is moorit like Brida, too.  As she also likely carries spotting, I might get some really cool looking brown spotted lambs from her.  Eirina is related to Draga as well.  Draga's mother was her great grandmother.  Which means she has a polled (no horns) ancestor (Draga's mother didn't have horns - that's why Draga had those unusual looking horns called scurrs).  Renauld also has a polled ancestor and it looks like this little girl will have scurrs like Draga.  She is very sweet.  So for sheep geekiness, this means that I pretty much have Eirina's colour genetics all figured out. (she carries solid AND spotting and moorit AND black - just what you were dying to know, I know!)



 And so it goes on the farm, death and birth, loss and gains.  Animals come and go.  Its hard but its beautiful, too.

Here's the rest of the crew from Tuesday morning.  I couldn't do it without Zeus who takes care of all the messy work.

the help aka placenta eater and rear end cleaner

And little Hugo is learning so fast.  He has learned not to bark at the sheep and here he is sitting quietly watching everything I did - which wasn't much. Eirina is a real pro!

The quiet observer