Sh**ty little lambie sits out silly snow storm

We had to bring one of Nellie's new lambs in for a bath. The orange-yellow poop that lambs have while still at the teat sometimes sticks to their fleece. Most mothers will clean it up, but not our Nellie, I guess. Shameless! This lamb had a fairly big old slab of pure lamb-merde encrusted to her leg.

A little soapy water and she was ready to go. Mom was glad to have her back, but says can we use scented dish soap next time?

In other news, we had a fairly big dump of wet spring snow yesterday, seen here on Aimee's beloved Camry.

Yes, there is a car under that snow drift.

We got one last snow day for the year, making six or seven total, plus 14 inches by Aimee's reckoning. I have to say it may have been more like a foot and a half of snow because she was measuring on the picnic table, and there was a stiff breeze throughout the storm which would have blown some of the snow away from the table.

It took an hour with the tractor yesterday and two hours today to move all the snow out of the way. We were on our own for this one. The town plow only just showed up, 30 hours after the storm began. But neighbor Ham plowed out to the road sometime during the night, so we were only snowed in temporarily. The power flickered off and on quite a few times and we know that 3,500 homes in the county to the south went without power for a day or so, but despite some flickering, we have power still. It probably helped a great deal that the line crew cleared the Great Farm's power distribution line where it comes through the woods, widening the corridor and taking out hundreds of trees that were crowding the line.

Now it's 40 F out there and getting warmer in the sun, and I expect much of this new snow will melt today or tomorrow, and what is left will be rained on Tuesday, so we expect to be back to spring-like conditions by the middle of the week.

Luckily, no more lambs appear to have been born. I say "appear." We may not know for sure. I greatly dislike late spring snow storms because a ewe may decide to drop her lambs off in a snowbank somewhere. The lambs can't dry off and if not found right away may die of hypothermia. We then find one or more dead lambs after the snow melts.

So we've been extra careful to get out every few hours and observe the ewes, including in the dead of night. Night checks are a drag, but it helps I have an aging bladder and have to get up anyway, while Aimee generally stays up late, and so can check before she comes to bed.

I think Tillie will be next to give birth. She's huge, her teats are swollen, and the lambs seem to have shifted in her belly. Mollie, on the other hand, has a bright pink vulva, so she may be getting ready too.

Of the two year-and-a-half-old ewes who will give birth for the first time this year, and whose P-names I can never remember (Poppy and Penelope?) only the white one is obviously "showing."

This year is "R," and Aimee has decided on "Roxy" and "Rhea." The first ram lamb we see is likely to be "Rivet."

I thought of that one, and am quite proud of myself. I might see how "Rigger" goes down too, whether or not I can get the wifely approval, and then we'll have a series going in honor of RAF technical lingo.

When we get to "S" next year, we can have "Sooty" and "Sumpy" (RAF slang for engine-bashers). Especially if they're black lambs.

Something to look forward to.