All done!

Maybelline has a nest of lambs!

Lambing season 2014 finished up in a really good way on Saturday evening, Easter eve.  My sweet Maybelline gifted us with a beautiful set of triplets, two white ewe lambs and a black and silver ram lamb.  Often times with triplets, it's a bit challenging for them to be born in the proper presentation (as if they are diving - head down between two front feet).  You can only imagine with 3 heads and 12 feet trying to make their way into the world, things might get somewhat confusing!  Maybelline's triplets were all perfectly positioned and the birthing process went very smoothly.  Out of the 13 ewes we bred this year, 5 of them had triplets and some of those births were much more complicated. Because of my own health issues, it has been trying at times, but all in all, I would consider it a successful lambing season.

My health issues have brought about lots of soul searching.  I haven't been sick, exactly, but nevertheless compromised in how I was able to go about my daily life here on the farm.  The muscle spasms in my neck and pain in my right hand made life, as I normally live it, completely out of the question.  When the blood clot scare happened, I was seriously thinking the time had come to give up my animals and retire (though how one does that, I'm not exactly sure). Luckily, Mike and I made a decision to be much more aggressive about getting medical answers and treatment for my maladies.  I've changed my primary care doctor and now I can say that it only took 3 months, but I finally managed to find the proper doctors!  Last week mainly consisted of a round of appointments with different specialists.  As a result of treatments I received,  I am cautiously optimistic that I'm on the right path now.  So - enough about all that.  Onward ....

Not quite the garden of my dreams - it will look better in a month or so!

It's finally warming up here.  The grass is green (and in need of mowing already), the trees are leafing out and I'm entertaining thoughts of gardening.  The garden is rather forlorn looking right now, but give me a little time and it will be lush.  Right now I'm waiting for the first spears of asparagus to appear and soon after that, strawberries.  Traditionally in Kentucky, planting out isn't safe until after Derby day, but given the weather we've had so far this year, it may be better to wait a week or two longer.  I've decided to expand my dye plants this year and maybe (radical thought) not put out quite so many tomatoes.  What I love most about the garden is being able to stroll through before dinner and pick my salad ingredients or maybe just a pluck a few tomatoes and call bacon and tomato sandwiches the meal!  What I'm slowly coming to admit is that I don't always enjoy having mounds of produce on the counter waiting for me to freeze, can, pickle or make it into jam.  Sometimes it's good and sometimes it just feels like too much pressure.  I still have enough bread and butter pickles to supply us for quite a while, thank you very much! 

These warm sunny days find me not sure where to start.  There is so much to do.  It's the time of year when I'm typically feeling quite overwhelmed by the sheer size of what we try to maintain.  I've been through it many times before and I'll calm down soon!

I hope everyone has checked out all the sweet pictures of my lambs that Sara has taken recently.  Sara is a gifted photographer and I'm so pleased that my lambs get to be part of her yearly Lamb Camp.