This morning met us with a great surprise. Shannon, our ewe, finally had her babies! So far I have seen both of them nurse and she is attentive to both. I am hopeful she will continue to care for them both. We have kept our distance for the time being until they are a bit more settled. I believe one is a girl but I’m not sure about the other.

Here’s a little update on our farm and how things progressed this winter.

We still have our chickens.  The site of chickens running towards you is hilarious.  They have been doing great laying over the winter.  We never did put out a light but they kept laying 5-8 eggs on average.  I was impressed.

We got our piggies early this year!  Say hello to Pepperoni, Deli and Hot Dog.  We talked about raising winter pigs so we wouldn’t have to worry about them while traveling over the summer or the smell in the warmer months.  Then we found a guy that had 3 month old pigs.  Score!  We usually get pigs at 2 months so that was one less month we had to feed them.

I love it when they line up like little sausages!

This year we decided to put the pigs in a different pen and use theirs for our larger garden items.  Corn, squash and what-have-you.  This also gave them a little more space and new ground to till.

Each year we try out a new feeding system for the pigs.  This “clean-looking one is this years.  So far so good.

We still have our sheep Shawn and Shannon.  At least for now.  Shannon is pregnant again and we are waiting for lambs.  Our very loose figure is mid March.  I am really hoping she is a better mama this year and takes care of both of them, should she have twins.

Pregnant sheep have those hard to reach places too!

As soon as the babies are born Shawn will be finding a new home.  His purpose at the moment is just company for Shannon.  We had our experience with a ram and are now done.  I think if we had more land and more ewes for him to keep track of I wouldn’t mind keeping him but for now we are thinning out the farm.  When the babies are done nursing Shannon will also be looking for a new home (sooner if she’s not a good mama).

She gets extra lovey when she’s close to her due date.

We are done keeping them over the winter.  If we want lambs we will just get some in the spring.  We will also be sending them all over to our friends property to gorge themselves on the pasture over the summer.  Tis the season of simplifying!

Hey! Did I ever mention I got a barn!  A red one.  I love, love, love it.  It has two stalls on the pasture side and storage on the other for hay and grain.  It has already needed repairs as Shawn was using it for target practice but she held her own pretty well.  It will be so great to be able to keep chicks in there when we need to freshen our flock.