Things could only get better

I was feeling quite despondent when I wrote yesterday's post. Lambing does that to you sometimes but as well as the downs there are ups and the day improved as it went on.

While we were dealing with the little lamb in its Astrakhan coat and milking the increasingly reluctant ewe I looked up and saw this:

(This is why I always have my camera in my pocket.) Another lamb being born - the 13th ewe. Who says number 13 is unlucky? She's an experienced ewe and had things very well organised.

We finished annoying the ewe by milking it and I went around the corner and found this:

Twins! She's also got an assistant who enthusiastically cleaned up the lambs and acted as a helper. This sometimes happens with ewes who are about to lamb themselves. The helper was furious when we moved the mum and babies out to an individual pen and shouted at us all day, standing on her hind legs with her feet on the hurdle looking in to the lambing pens at the twins. (When I went out to check them at 11pm she'd had a lovely big single ram lamb and a very proud mum she is too. Funnily enough she also had an enthusiastic helper who lambed this morning.)

Meanwhile, as it was a truly lovely spring day, it was the perfect time to put the eldest lambs out in the field.

Off they go... well, the ewes and two of the lambs...

What about us...? The ewes, with their eyes on the spring grass, seem to have forgotten something.

One comes back for hers, we deliver the others, sorting out ensues.

By the afternoon, everyone's happy.