A Lamb is Born

A beautiful Sunday morning.  Cold, but sunny.  The shepherd waits expectantly as a ewe goes into labor.  In hindsight, I  think I drank too much coffee.  The experience of being the only doctor, nurse or midwife in the room with only book learning and no experience to go on made me jittery enough.  What if something went wrong and I needed to held out?

Sonja digging a birthing nest.

Once the hard labor began, it was sometimes painful to watch.

Sonja would lie on her side and strain during the contractions.  In between she would get up and walk about a little.  I was in attendance for the birth of all five of our sons, so I generally knew what to expect, but it actually was more nerve wracking for me since there were no experts in the room, just a rookie intern with no clinical experience.

Two small hooves emerge, soon to be followed by a nose - the normal presentation for a lamb.  However, when I first saw this I was afraid I was seeing four hooves.  I was already jacked up with caffeine and the thought of a jackknifed lamb or twins coming out at the same time really rattled me.

Fortunately, the rookie never had to scrub.   After a lot of hard work,  Sonja pushed out an 8 lb. lamb.

The proud father looks on as Sonja cleans her lamb.  Go figure - cross a white ram with a brown ewe, and of course, you would expect an all black lamb, right?  Shortly after this Gunnar tried to butt his daughter through the fence so I had to tie him to a tree.  Animals are animals.

This is a miracle.  The theory of evolution cannot explain things like this.  Within minutes of being born  the lamb was  looking for a teat, and she found it.

Ahhh...life is good.

Of course, the shepherd has to meddle a bit.  I am carrying the lamb at ground level so that Sonja  does not lose sight of it.  I then barricaded them in the hayshed for a couple of days so that they are out of the wind and  have some good time to bond.

Spring Arrives

The last storm of February

David tries skijoring with two dogs

Jeni inspecting the greenhouse...

...Where the spinach is growing nicely

A sure sign of spring.  This year all three of our hives survived the winter.

Gunnar and Jeni having a little face time

Our snow melted in one week.

Even the dragonflies came out early

David and Jonathan made one last effort at skijoring

80 degrees in March,  my earliest sunburn ever.

Of course, the hot weather could not last, but cold weather is much better for working with a chainsaw.

Grandma enjoying her jello

This time of year I spend most of the evening outside.  There's plenty of work to do sawing wood, preparing gardens, etc., but the spring peepers are singing, there are geese at the pond and everywhere new grass is spring up.  Life is good.

Speculating in the Futures Market

While driving to work Thursday morning it occurred to me that the county might be putting on their seasonal load restrictions for secondary roads soon, so I placed a call with my renewable fuels broker and he delivered  eleven cords of energy futures Saturday morning.  The load restrictions will be going on noon Monday, so exercising my futures option turned out to be a wise decision.

That same day we met with our stock brokers, John and Wendy to accept delivery of three shares of live stock with a futures option of a fourth.  We had lost a third of our ovine portfolio two weeks earlier in a bear (i.e. wolf) market, and wanted to replenish it.

The transaction consisted of a bred ewe, Lolly, that is expected to throw twins, possibly triplets, in April. I paid with a futures check, redeemable on my next payday.

Lolly pulls better than most sled dogs.

Gunnar welcomed the new flock addition with enthusiasm.

And, charming gentleman that he is, pursued her...

Round ...

and round...

and round and round and round.  Wendy had cautioned us that Lolly was a little frowzy looking because she had missed her normal fall shearing,  but she was a "10" in Gunnar's eyes.

Super Sunday

Marja chopped up apples that we had picked from our own trees last summer and made pies from them.  We stored the apples in our basement which is quite cold.  The skins were a bit wrinkled, but the flesh was firm and delicious.  No pesticides on these apps.  No service fees, and free downloads with every slice.

Forty degrees and sunshine brought bees from their hives.  These are euphemistically termed "cleansing flights", as the bees leave their hives in order to relieve themselves. On a very warm afternoon the air will be filled with bees and the snow all around the hives will be yellow.  It's always amazing to see bees flying in winter, and I was encouraged to see activity in all three hives.  Hopefully, they will all make it to spring.

It was a beautiful afternoon to go snowshoeing through the swamp to the old beaver ponds, that are now just open meadows - until a family of beavers returns to rebuild the dam. 

Snowshoes and swamps go together hand in glove.  What in summer is a soggy slog through tangled undergrowth and tall grass becomes an easy stroll during the winter.  Not to mention the fact that there are no bugs during the winter.

Woolen bibs, otherwise known as the Minnesota tuxedo, are the most comfortable pants you can wear in the woods.  Wool is real.  Millions of sheep can't be wrong.

One of the old beaver dams along the creek.

Warm sunshine, hot coffee, a comfortable seat and a good book.  It doesn't get much better than this.

Green branches in sunshine, something you might take for granted if you live in a place where the sun shines year round. You probably can't  appreciate how much a sunny day means to those of us who experience sunlight starvation up here in the northern boondocks, so just take my word for it that we develop a real thirst for color during the cloudy gray times.

A Sad Interlude

Friday afternoon  Marja called me and told me to come home right away.  Sigrid was outside the fence and the dogs were after her.  When I pulled into the yard, Marja was waiting on the path with a sad message, “Sigrid is dead.”

 My emotions were shock, grief and anger.  When I saw Kalevi feeding on the dead sheep I lashed out with adrenalin-charged rage.  Hearing Kalevi yelp, our other male dog, Savu, ran over and was immediately attacked by Kalevi.  When I began dragging Kalevi away by his hind legs, Savu kept attacking him.  I hollered and kicked and tried to break it up, but  it seemed like nothing I did had any effect on either one.  They simply wanted to kill each other.

Finally, after the dogs had bloodied themselves up and I had run out of anger, everyone began cooling down.

The day before Gunnar had butted this door and bent the flange somewhat which I had to bend back with a crowbar.  I was planning on putting a wooden crossbar to secure the door, but I didn’t think he would actually bend the dead bolt like he did.  I suspect once he opened the door he may have seen the dogs and stayed back.  The shed and the fence are within the dogs’ radio fence shock zone, so they keep their distance.  Unfortunately, Sigrid, our smaller ewe, decided that this was the day to explore outside the fence.

Marja got to the scene right before the dogs attacked.  She had gotten ahold of Kalevi’s collar, but he broke free.  All three dogs of our huskies attacked the sheep at once and there was nothing that Marja could do.  I feel badly that she had to see it, for it was due to my carelessness.  I should have secured that door better

Most of the blood you see is Kalevi's own.  Savu chewed up his face fairly well as I was dragging him away.  White dogs always look awful after a dogfight.  I know, because I've had six white huskies over the years.

I could have cheerfully shot all of my dogs at the moment I first saw this.  Anger is a powerful emotion, but we need to master it.   Blind rage can do terrible things, our ability to reason is severely hindered. My dogs were just obeying their basic predatory instincts.  I really cared for this sheep.  I was hoping that she would have a lamb in April, but my pets killed her.  Does that make them evil?  No, but it reminds us that animals are animals and we cannot expect them to behave contrary to their nature.  From what I have read, sheep are fascinated by open gates.  Dogs are fascinated by running sheep.  I need to keep my gates closed.

There is a deeper lesson to be drawn however.  We are all imperfect fallible human beings.  We do stupid things, we make dumb mistakes just like sheep.  We cannot undo the past, but we need to forgive ourselves, as we have been forgiven through Christ,  and go on.  We have a perverse habit of beating ourselves with our failures and reliving our mistakes with thoughts such as "If only I had done this, or hadn't done that.  Then this wouldn't have happened."  Has it ever occurred to you that it is just possible that God is greater than your mistakes?  Learn from it, put it behind you, and get on with your life.