Adventures with sheep and goats

On January 8, Sherri gave birth to quadruplet doelings! She has had triplets every year (four years running), so the quads were unexpected. They were also quite large for quads. The smallest was 2 pounds, 14 ounces, and she was not standing or nursing after an hour, so we brought her inside to bottle feed. Her sisters are growing so fast, but she is staying small and runty. That's a picture of a four-day-old kid nursing.

Yesterday, our sheep disappeared. Shortly before sundown, someone called to say the sheep were down the road. When we got there, they had just run into the timber. The dog, who is still green at only 10 months of age, ran straight at them, which just drove them farther into the woods. Then we couldn't find his "off" switch. But as it got darker, the sheep just would not move. Mike caught one and carried her out of the woods, which was about half a mile. We decided to leave everyone else and wait until dawn.

This morning, four of us went out there, armed with corn chips, crackers, and loose sheep minerals. As soon as they saw us, they came running toward us, then they suddenly took a sharp left turn. Thankfully, that was towards home. We couldn't keep up with them though. They ran all the way home! Very strange!

As I was tromping through a frozen, crunchy corn field and then down a deserted country road as the sun started gleaming over the horizon, it reminded me of the Army commercial they had on television about a decade ago. These men get out of bed in the dark, then start jumping out of helicopters, shooting, blowing things up, and then they're sitting around a campfire drinking coffee as the sun comes up. The voice-over says that in the Army, you'll do more before dawn than most people do all day. I guess that homesteaders don't count.