The grass is green, the lambs are white...

The warm temperatures and steady rains turned the fields green today, and Ella had her third set of twins - white ewes! Our first lambs of 2016 sired by our first white ram and they're both white! The ewe on the right was born first and has a small black dot (barely visible here) on her left front leg above her hoof. The second born is very tall  with a small brown spot on her rump and another above her right eye. This one has an especially perfect Shetland tail and is a very quiet lamb. Her sister is curious but also a bit feistier. Both have beautifully even crimpy fleeces, and I can't wait for them to be fluffy and dry so I can get a real feel of their fleeces. Since these are our first white lambs, and since Ella is one of my favorite ewes, I may have to keep one - but I can't keep both!

As for the other ladies...
Cali has really filled in the last 24 hours. She may go before the end of the weekend, or she may be like her mother, Crystal, and have a large udder for weeks before lambing. I bet by Tuesday she'll have lambs. After looking at these pictures this evening, I'm guessing she just has twins. We'll know for sure soon enough!














Madeleine (right) is still huge, but her udder's still small. Her udder is gradually growing, but no drastic expansions yet. Not many changes with this girl.

Myra (left) is also pretty stagnant. She continues to look uncomfortable, but that udder is really staying the same.

I still think Lucy (left) and Mary (right) will wait until the end, although Mary's udder does seem to be filling during the past two days. She's also allowed me to scratch her for the first time and has almost taken grain from my hand! At three, she's finally showing signs of progress. This girl has such great fleece and conformation that I was never willing to part with her, even if she was a bit skittish. I'm glad to see she's finally coming around.




Shelly and Jeanne are very hard to get good photos of. Shelly definitely has an udder, Jeanne still has no signs of one. I haven't given up on Jeanne completely, but if there's no udder by next week I'll assume she was left open. If she was, I'll have to beg someone to take her - she's so flighty!