Whilst I Was Off On A Jolly...

My wife posted this picture on Facebook yesterday with a caption about being left to deal with the sheep whilst I was off on a jolly (more on that tomorrow but I had an amazing day learning about market gardening)! 

The ewe in the picture had had two lambs (luckily no assistance needed) and my wife dealt with them and checked the sheep for me throughout the day, as well as feeding them in the afternoon. All with three children in tow!

She even sprayed the lambs bellies whilst carrying Alistair! 

 She even goes on to beat that today when doing her checks (I'm still having to go to work at this time so she's doing a few checks in the day for me whilst we wait for the last ones to lamb) she notices that the new mother had only one lamb with her, she found the other by the brook, cold and shivering. So I came home (luckily I was only working in the next village) and got her into a bonding pen with both lambs (the ewe not my wife), this was after about half an hour running round a field swearing and wanting to throw my crook at it. 

She was not keen on her second lamb and promptly set to try and kill it, the lamb was in desperate need of a drink so rather than mess around I rolled the ewe over and let him have his fill before putting her in an adopter pen, where hopefully he'll pick up her sent and she'll accept him over time. 

I'm sure that if my wife hadn't been really observant and spotted it when she did then the lamb would have passed the point of no return shortly afterwards. It's amazing how much she's learning about sheep and the things that she tells me she's seen on her checks. 

I'm always very aware that I've pushed my wife into this lifestyle, but it makes me very happy to see how well she adapts to it (whether she wants to or not!). 

I'm a very lucky man!