I found a guy that travels around the country shearing.  He is also from North Carolina, not far from my home town.  It figures I would have to move to Alabama to find a shearer from North Carolina.   I had to be referred and luckily the lady i bought the sheep from also used him, so she referred me.  I got on the list and now I had to wait until he had time to come down south.

                                              

I happened to be the first private farm on his list and he showed up last Friday afternoon.  I didn't know what to expect but we had the sheep penned and waiting for him.  He moved in his large piece of equipment that ran his clippers and set down to shaving the sheep.  One by one he grabbed them and sat them on their bottoms.  The sheep never panicked and actually sat very still while he set to his work.  

I was impressed as I watched him roll the sheep around the floor while taking off their winter coats.  It was fascinating to watch.  I only have six sheep so it only took about 45 minutes and he was done.  Luckily, I was able to worm them before he turned them loose so I got to kill two birds with one stone.  It made that nasty job much easier.

Now I have a pile of wool in my barn that I am not sure what I am going to do with.  I am currently looking for someone who might be able to make it into yarn for me.  I love to knit and it would be really nice to be able to make something from the wool grown right here on my own farm.  We will see.

It is kidding and lambing season and the goats decided that February would be a good time to have babies.  Ivy went first and had a big beautiful boy full of moon spots.  She had one boy last season and kidded very easily, and I am thankful for that.  So many things can go wrong, but this time it was easy for her and me.

That same afternoon, Violet decided she wanted to go and she had triplets.  I was stunned because she didn't look that big.  I was sure it was twins, but triplets! And to top it off she had two that were polled.  Violets little boy was also polled.  I was ecstatic.  That meant I didn't have to disbud them which I hate doing.  Everyone settled in and were doing great.  Violet was handling the triplets with ease and things started to quite down.

Exactly one week later, Diva went into labor.  She is an old pro at kidding so I was really excited to see what she was going to give me.  I put her in the barn, thinking she was in early labor, only to come back a few minutes later to two babies on the ground.  One of them was stillborn, the other one was doing well.  I stayed with her and a few minutes later she had two more.  Another one was stillborn.  Diva still looked awfully big and I thought there might be another, but she was finished.  Four babies and only two survived.  I was heartbroken.  She ended up with a boy that looked exactly like the daddy and a little girl that looked exactly like her.  I was thrilled.  I left the barn that night very happy.  Little did I know that things would go very wrong very quickly.

The next day, I found one of my sheep away from the herd.  I was concerned and went to check it out.  She was having a hard time breathing and had a lot of mucous coming from her mouth and nose.  I got my husband to help carry her to the porch and I spent the rest of the day and night doing everything I could to help her.  I called a vet but couldn't find anyone to come help me; I was frantic and felt helpless. She passed away in the middle of the night.  I was devastated.

The next morning, I went to check on the goats.  I went into the barn and Diva was laying on her side.  She was dead.  I lost it at that moment.  What could have gone wrong?  She was fine when I checked on her before I went to bed.  Now I have two kids that have no mom.  I cried and cried.  I lost two of my animals in a matter of hours.  I was starting to question if this life was for me.

A few days later, one of the ewes went into labor and I had my first little lamb born on the farm .  It is a boy and he is so stinking cute.  That little life helped me with how low I was feeling.

I decided to let Diva's little girl go to a family that bought from me last year.  I was going to keep her, but after thinking about what direction I wanted the farm to go in, I let her go.  It was very hard for me to part with her.  She was all that I had left of Diva.  I loved Diva and I still miss her terribly.

We have sold all of the kids from this season and I have also sold the lamb.  They will all go to their new homes as soon as they are weaned.  I am hoping to have more lambs sometime this spring.  I also purchased three new doelings to add to the one doeling that I am retaining.  I am hoping the rest of the season will be uneventful.  I love new life, it is full of promise.