Tessa and Judy (Lizzie in the back)

Lizzie lambed today! Incredibly, she did so in broad daylight on a nice day with warm weather! There were some problems with getting food into the babies--idiot mother has overdeveloped licking instinct and atrophied feed instinct--but everyone's doing fine. The product of the afternoon's work is two beautiful, healthy ewe lambs, both perfectly willing to eat constantly, thanks to their mother's refusal to permit this. *sigh* Every time a lamb heads for her udder, Lizzie turns around to follow it, swinging the milk away. Geh. Let me tell you, I was very tired of this by the time we finished up with everything and went inside. The worst moment was when Gan, proud *#&*^$#*% father, decided he'd been left out too long and came over the apparently inadequate fence to try to breed Lizzie. I eventually decided that crouching over Tess to keep her from being trampled wasn't doing the job and went on the offensive. By the time my reinforcements arrived I'd wrestled Gan away, and Peter and Owen helped me escort him out, with me steering him and the boys providing incentive. Then Peter distracted him outside the paddock and Owen held Lizzie so I could get some milk into Tess. Owen, by the way, was a great help all through. It was great having an able pair of extra hands, and he made some good suggestions. The names are his--I do like naming myself, but they're quite good names and he's always crushed when I don't like his suggestions. The entire affair was very exhausting, however, although I admit Lizzie--thanks to whose efforts I am exhausted--worked much harder than I did. She just didn't utilize any sense. >:[ Anyway: net gain: two strong ewe lambs and some more experience for me. I didn't lose my head about clearing mouths like with Susan, although I think the problem then was that I was in panic mode by the time I found them and any clear-headedness was out of the question. I'm still mildly surprised those two were fine, and accept the death of the third as due for my own tardiness. TT_TT And I wouldn't be surprised if I had panicked with Judy, because I was feeling around trying to find her other foreleg, and when I pulled her I was not at all certain that she would be fine. But she was, and she was vocal enough to signal her mom that there was someone new requiring her attention. (Tessa was ridiculously clean by this time. Lizzie is very good at one thing. Well, she also produces a lot of milk and twins to drink it...Good genes to keep, I suppose.)
Lark was very martyred by the time I came in to make dinner, poor brat. She had to stay inside the whole time, except for a few minutes after she slipped out with the boys to help with Gan. She was very intrigued by the odd goings-on in the paddock, of course, and expressed this by barking. You see why she was inside. Actually, I first realized it might be Lizzie's day because of the way she was reacting to Lark. Being a sensible sheep, she's usually wary to hostile, but this was stronger than usual, and she was talking funny--grunts more than bleats. So thanks, Lark, even though you're a dingbat who shouldn't be let within a mile of any stock without more training.

So next is Starling! *shudders* Pretty soon, too. She's bagged up, and as I haven't a clue when she was bred I don't have a due date to glance at. So she could actually drop anytime, except I'm a little incredulous that this is as big as she gets. Notasinglepleasetwinsnosingles! Besides being uneconomic, single lambs are hard work to deliver, having had more room to grow.....