Changing Light, Changing Weather

Now that it's April, we don't have snow around the farm but we still can't exactly call the weather "spring-like", not yet.  The temperatures are cold, the wind is cold and it seems to blow all the time!  Another thing we don't have is any green (as in grass).  I'm really watching for that, watching and counting bales of hay that are left in the barn to finish feeding until pasture does come.  But the light ~ the light is changing, isn't it?  I see it in the way the sunset reflects on the woods.  The way it makes early evening shadows on the old barn walls while I finish up the chores at night (see those little spots along the beam?)

 So while the temperatures and lack of new growth aren't showing us spring yet, we do know its coming!  I stay in the barn a little longer each night, watching the ewes to see who shows the most sign of coming lambs.  They don't look that big, really, not like in years past and I wonder if our new ram lamb did his job in breeding.  I'm sure that some of them are bred - probably all of them - but it looks like lambing season might be stretched out a bit.  I worry that I might have waited to long to schedule shearing day - it's no fun for the sheep or the shearer to have to work on very pregnant ewes!

Well today we were blessed and happy with the arrival of the first of those expected lambs - the first from new ram "Jack".  Their mama, Collette, has never had a bit of trouble lambing and today was no different.  But I'm glad it happened during daylight and that we were home and watching because another "old-timer", our Ainsley, was certain that she should have one of those lambs!  We got Collette and her new daughters separated and in their own little pen, safe and happy.  And so it begins....

 This old thermometer, with its Sam Savitt like painting, hangs in the barn where I pass by it every day.  I love it and think about bringing it to the house, but its just such a fixture on this old door that it will stay where it is.  And one of these days, probably before we're truly ready for it, the temperature will start to climb - and then I'll complain that its to warm!

This is my 300th blog post.  Seems like I should do something to mark this milestone - I guess the lamb announcement is it ;)  ETA: Two more ewes lambed in the night and Lona was right, Ainsley was one of them!  The other was a first timer who did a wonderful job with her beautiful ewe lamb.