I know I’ve been negligent of late.  I haven’t been darkening the door of this particular blog nearly as often as I should.  It’s not for lack of exciting stuff happening, I can tell you that!

Lately, this guy:

has been working on upgrading Susie’s Lambcam.  The lambcam consisted of one average workaday camera that had to be moved around depending on where the action was, and a not so fantastic picture quality.  Honestly, I thought it was fantastic and wonderful because it allowed the world to click on Susie’s webpage and see a live picture of lambs and kids!  But as this is the sort of thing Paul does for a living, he just kept looking at it and muttering that one day he’d make sure she got a “real” system.

And his threat promise has come to fruition.  For the past few weeks he’s been working hard at it.  This has made it even easier for me to worm my way into daily farm life at Juniper Moon Farm.  I’ve taken it upon myself to be a kind of unasked – for volunteer.  Plus I need to visit these guys:

They’re lays happy to seeme.  Especially if I bring food.

And trust me, I LOVE feeding time.

It’s when I get to pet the sheep.  Normally they’re rather aloof.  But when there’s grain involved, oh boy!

All this volunteering to help out has been fun for me, and hopefully, helpful to Susie.  Yesterday started out seeming like a perfect mix of that.

She decided that since our local feed stores are perpetually out of sheep feed (and nearly anything else we ever need – ask me how I know) she would make a trip up to Northern Virginia where there was a confirmed presence of feed plus the other supplies she’d be needing once the sheep and goats started having their babies.

Of course I volunteered to check on everyone in the morning (she left super duper early – or, as Paul calls it, “Oh – dark hundred) when Paul stopped over to do lambcam work. Even mom was game to come along and see how large the pregnant ewes had gotten.

Imagine my surprise when we discovered a little lamb in the pasture, surrounded by the guard dogs.   Lambing wasn’t supposed to start yet!  We rushed that baby into the barn and under the heat lamp and set out to look for the new mama.  We herded (mom said “accused”) two possible mamas into the barn before spotting another ewe far down by the fence line standing over a small white blob.  A second baby!

Poor Susie got the shocking news over the phone, over 2 hours away. And then had to race home at superhuman speed.

Both lambs are doing wonderfully and mom and I got to feel like actual shepherds for the day.  I’m glad for the experience because I will have my own sheep as soon as humanly possible.

Just look at that little face.