Lambing: Part 1

Things I know:

1. This is the third lambing since I started seeing Ivie (I know this because I have made three swear jars).
2. That's a potty-mouthed cow on the top one, not a sheep (I adapted it for calving).

Lambing began at the Spittal about ten days ago and, so far, there are around a dozen lambs. I have to admit, I'm still at the developmental stage of a three year old, "Look! Baby lambs!". I don't think anyone that actually lives on a farm ever passes through that stage. Farmers are born rolling their eyes and swearing at ewes. 

Sheep have a death wish, you see. I have it on good authority that from the moment they're born, their main aim is to die. They don't seem to have that survival instinct the rest of us have and, instead, they're looking for ways to roll on to their backs and die, prolapse and die and get stuck in a ditch and die. I detect a pattern emerging...

We haven't reached 'peak lambing' - as I like to call it - yet so Ivie still spends almost a full night in bed and conversation at lunchtime is as coherent as normal (on both sides). Give it a couple of weeks and Ivie will be snatching a couple of hours' kip here and there on the sofa and wandering through his days like a bit of a zombie. 

It's the time of year I feel most useless on the farm. It would take longer for Ivie to tell me what to do than to just do it himself so all I can do is keep a pot of soup on the cooker, keep the baking tin well-stocked and not make too many demands.

I like to go up to the lambing shed with Ivie last thing at night to see what's happening. So far this year I haven't seen any lambs being born but I did have a mama ewe glare and stamp her hooves at me last night as I tried to take a closer look at her baby. I left her to it and made Ivie pose for a selfie instead.