Crazy Week!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here is a little piece of our decorations this year. I saw this idea on Pinterest.com and thought I'd try it myself. It would have been nearly impossible without my Silhouette, so I must give the credit where it is due!

Of course, these last two weeks have found us deep in the throws of sharing Valentines with each other. Chad came up with some great Valentines this year! Sunday night, Chad filled the tub with really hot water, bubbles and this:

(That is a little Fisher Price lamb in a boat.)

I got a pretty good laugh over it and then climbed in. When I turned around, saw this:

The joke is funnier when you know the tub looked like this a few days before:


It all started on Tuesday, 7 Feb when Chad went out to feed the animals and found 2 little lambs! By the time Chad got home that evening, Leah and I had brought this little ewe lamb inside because she wasn't standing on her own anymore.


She lived in this box, sitting in front of the heater in the bathroom, for the night while we bottle fed her through the night. Daniel named her - Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. We called her Super instead.

Here is Super's mother and twin sister. They are still doing quite well. But they no longer recognize each other as family.

She's pretty darn cute, though!

The next day, we had more babies. Chad found them in the morning again. There had been triplets, but sadly, one was already gone. The other two were doing quite well for a while, but we eventually brought the littler one in and put her in front of the heater. We caught her earlier and she's still a better eater than Super. We named her Ali as in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Those two little gals were so SKINNY!

During the night, while we were feeding the lambs, Chad went out to check on Ali's brother. He was fine. Less than 4 hours later, he was moments from death. Those lambs will die for no reason! We bought a second heat lamp that evening and got it up in the shed.

Meanwhile, I was getting my fill of lambs in my bathroom. Their poop was really stinky. I tried to keep them in the tub to make the clean up easier, but Chad was worried that the cast iron tub was too cold. So then the poop built up in the box we were keeping them in. Gross! On the other hand, I am quite impressed with my washer and laundry detergent!

I would put them in the tub to hopefully catch the poop and pee that inevitably came after a feeding. When Ali started getting OUT of the tub, I knew we were at our limit. Chad moved them outside to the warm heat lamps. And then he cleaned the bathroom. What a man!

Two quiet days passed and then we ended up with triplets again on Saturday. We watched them so closely. OK...Chad did the watching. He got up every 90 minutes to make sure everyone was well and occasionally to feed Super and Ali. He was pretty tired on Sunday!

The lambs were growing well and seemed fine. Here is a shot of them from yesterday.


And then I went out today and found the smallest one (a ram) cold, on the ground. Shoot. He was doing so well! So we are currently at 5 lambs. There are two ewes that have not had babies yet. We just wait and watch and pray over our little flock. Even the kids mention the lambs in their prayers.

We are not very skilled shepherds, but we are trying. Hopefully, we are learning and will have a better year next year (provided next year is as we plan).