Some gratuitous lamb shots

The lambs are growing so quickly now.  Their play-times get more rambunctious and personalities begin to show.  No surprise, Gabby's two boys are very self-confident and seem to be the ring leaders for all kinds of trouble activity.  They're the first to jump on the hay bales and to try getting into the ewes feed bunks.  The famous Graham Lamb is their uncle (he and Grabby are twins), so I'm thinking there is something "special" in their genes. 

This pretty girl is one of only two single lambs we had born this spring.  We had four sets of triplets, two singles and the rest were all twins.  Out of twelve ewes, that makes for an over 200% lambing average.  That's a pretty good average since I'm not raising Finn sheep or some other breed that routinely have small litters.  One of my favorite things to do is go into the pen at night and just sit down and wait for the lambs to decide whether I'm a friend or foe.  I'm not sure how many more years I'll want (or be physically able) to keep having lambs.  It makes me sad to think of a spring-time with no bouncing lambs to watch.  The really hard part comes in a few months when I have to start deciding which lambs stay and which lambs go.

(another set of twins - boy with the tag in the left ear and girl with the tag in the right ear)

Holly always has a favorite ewe that she likes to hang out with.  I've never figured out how she chooses which one it will be, though it nearly always is one of the black sheep. One really good thing that I've observed this spring is that Aslan, who came to live here last fall, has been terrific with the lambs.  Though he's five years old, he'd never been on a farm where there were lambs being born and I wondered how he might react.  He's learned to slow down and hang back a little a feeding time, so that all the lambs come into the barn before him. 

The sheep are sleeping away most of the daylight hours because it is so dang hot!  Who ever heard of mid to upper 80's at the beginning of May?  Makes me worried about what kind of temperatures we will be having in July.  The sheep are already asking for the fans to be set up.  Those of you watching the lamb-cam might have noticed that I'm not shutting everyone in the barn at night.  I've been leaving the gate open to the outside, so they can go out where it is cooler.  They are in a very secure field and Aslan is in with them, so I'm not worried about predators.

Our last planning committee meeting for the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival is this afternoon.  It seems nearly impossible that it's just a little over two weeks away now.  I've been in the dye pots for several weeks now and have finally finished dyeing all of the yarn from our sheep/alpaca blend yarn.  If you come (and I hope you do), please stop by my booth in the Livestock Pavilion and say hello.  We have a wonderful line-up of workshops and vendors, so there will be plenty of pretty things to buy and lots of interesting things to do.  I hope to meet many of you there.