His fleece was white as snow...

Though spring has just sprung, it still looks like a winter wonderland out there. Two more inches of fluffy white stuff overnight and I'm ready for it to go. The end of March ALWAYS seems to drag on, especially when there's still snow on the ground and not much outside work to do. I mean there's plenty to do, but who wants to skirt fleeces when it's 30 degrees outside? The snow's too deep to prune fruit trees and bushes, unless I want to put on my snowshoes. This is the time of year that I need to keep busy, otherwise I spend too much time speculating on due dates. Just as a watched pot never boils, I keep reminding myself watched ewes don't lamb!

Last Tuesday Claire was starting to bag up. I had back-calculated her lambing due date as the 23rd (Thursday), but she seemed like she might be ready. Early last week I had speculated she would single early so I was certain she'd lamb by the weekend. I brought her in to the lambing pen in the evening and hoped there might be a lamb in the morning. She had been isolating herself all day, and her udder was a clear sign something would happen soon. I always get a little excited for the first lambing, and as usual, I got too excited. She was not happy to be isolated and she seemed quite annoyed that I had locked her up. All day Wednesday she seemed to glare at me and happily much through several armfuls of hay. No lambing behavior, just an udder. So Wednesday night I again hoped there would be lambs in the morning. Nothing.

Thursday morning I had a friend coming by to photograph some products, and by 8 o'clock I knew she would be lambing before noon. Every hour I'd run to the barn to check, and while there was progress, there was no lamb. After seeing my friend off at 11:30, I went back to the barn and there he was. A good sized white ram shaking his head getting licked clean by Claire. A few hours later he was dried off, well fed and a solid 8 lbs. If only I had trusted my calculations and not jumped the gun!

As for everyone else (photos from Thursday)...

 Three generations: Kira, Ella and Daphne.

 Daphne may be next.

 Ella's holding steady.

Myra looks enormous; they all do laying down! The above three should all have lambs by next weekend.

The remainder all have a ways to go. Doris will single, Kira twin and Maggie may single or twin. Mary will twin, Lucy will single and Jeanne may not be bred (again! ERRR).