Go Crazy 'til the Cows come home

I haven't updated for a few days because we've been busy here with farming. Most days are routine, but every once in awhile you get "one of those days". Yesterday was one such day... The morning started as it always does - going out to the pasture to check the sheep and lambs, see if there are any new ones that were born overnight and put out their feed. We had been having a problem with one Ewe who lambed twins on Saturday and rejected the second one (it wandered away while she was cleaning the first lamb and since she didn't bond with it right away, she wanted nothing to do with it). We were able to graft the lamb onto another ewe who lambed a short time after she was born, and they were doing OK as a family unit. We had one ewe left to lamb (we thought) so I went to see if she had lambed, but she was still wide and waddling. ; ) There was a new lamb, though. One of the yearling ewes that we assumed was not bred, was standing there licking a newborn lamb. She was one of the smallest yearlings, so I went and looked at the other 3 yearling ewes that we also counted as "not bred" and noticed that they all looked like this one did just before she lambed, so we're waiting to see how many more there will be.

We missed church because we had to care for a ewe that had prolapsed just before lambing and we were bottle feeding the bum lamb until we were able to graft her onto a new mom. In the evening, the ewe we were waiting on to lamb had twins while I watched in the pasture. They were number 22 and 23.

Mike had gone to another farm to pick up some laying hens we were buying with them and when he came back and walked into the chicken coop, he noticed it was full of smoke! The chicks had somehow knocked down the heat lamp and it was laying on the pine shavings smoldering. Luckily, he caught it in time, got the coop aired out and remedied the situation without losing any chicks. He was able to get the new chickens settled into the coop before the kids realized it was getting late and we hadn't had dinner yet!

In the busy-ness of lambing and waiting for Buttercup to have her calf (which she hasn't done yet - 1 week and 2 days past her due date) we both neglected to lay out the steaks for dinner, so we were all starved and dinner was frozen solid. We decided to order out and when Mike was on his way home with the food, he approached our farm, only to find 11 cows standing in the middle of the road - in the dark - with cars coming in both directions!!! He called me quickly on my cell phone and I called for the kids to get outside. (Whenever the call "THE COWS ARE OUT" is heard, that's a sign to drop whatever you are doing and get outside!!) So here it is, 9:30 at night and Mike and I and 3 of the kids are chasing cows back and forth up and down the road, all while trying to get them in pastures or barns to get them off the road. In the stress, they are running in all directions, and cars are still coming in both directions. I'm trying to flag down cars with my flashlight, DD is chasing cows through the hay field (she's wearing flip flops and falls in a ground hog hole before she gets them to run back toward the barn), her younger sister is manning the gate on the pasture, trying to make sure cows are going IN not OUT - (inspite of her best efforts, she lost a few!), DS is blocking traffic coming the other direction and holding the flashlight for his dad to see how to fix the electric fence they had knocked down to get to the "grass that's always greener on the other side of the fence".

FINALLY, after 45 minutes, we had all the cows back in place, the fences and gates were secure, everyone was happy and we sat down to our cold Supper (It's now after 10 pm!) By the time we settled down and everyone discussed what part they played in the saga, it was 11 o'clock before we got to bed, so we told the kids they could sleep late and we'd take them to school when everyone was up and ready.

So I called the school this morning to let them know the kids would be late. I told them, "Yesterday, we had sick sheep, bum lambs, almost burned down the chicken coop, got 50 new chickens, and the cows got out. We ate dinner at 10:30 last night. We didn't have the nerve to wake the kids up at 6 am. We'll be there in a little while..." Just a taste of life "on the funny farm"!