Our house - we hope

Today two exciting things happened.  First, we went to see a house near us that has to be moved.  This may be our house.

The other thing that happened is we got another offer on our place in town.  We should know for sure within the week. 

Yesterday, we had a sick sheep.  Abby has had a fever since giving birth on Thursday.  But yesterday afternoon she started eating her feed again. 

Three blessings in less than 24 hours!  Wow! Isn't God good?

Shepherding: a gentle little giant

 

Annie's labor was long and hard.  The minute Christie was born we understood why.  Our new little ewe is a giant compared to her cousins.

She is bigger than Bonnie who was born a week ago.

The labor may have been long but the process of getting up to a stand and finding the milk was accomplished with ease.

Day 3 for the lambs

Day three for the lambs, Bruno and Bonnie, was scary for them at first.  They were used to four sturdy walls and comfortable soft hay, but their shepherdess helped mommy get them exposed to the great out doors, and they discovered that it wasn't so bad after all.  They even found convenient resting spots when following mommy got too tiring.  Mommy eventually had to come back looking for them.

The shepherdess was busy trying to till the land with a tiller that her handy son-in-law had salvaged and fixed,

 so she helped Annie get her lambs back into the shed where they were safer.

The Big News

We have twins!!  One girl and one boy from Annie.  The little girl lamb, Bonnie, is very weak, and I worry about her, but she will make it. 

The little boy lamb is a healthy little ram.




The other ewe will probably lamb tomorrow.

Sheds

The sheep shed we built is great for the sheep (after a couple of remodeling jobs), but we needed a place for feed and also something for our tools, and something for the junk that needs to be outside the trailer. (No wonder they make it hard for people to live in trailers )

The restore gets Home Depot's shed display models after they have been dismantled, and sells them as is.  We bought a pile of parts cheap, and took them home to put together.  We ended up with all of the basic parts for four buildings but almost no hardware.

We have been improvising with some success, but it looks like we will be ordering a few parts from the company that makes them unless they find the parts at the restore. Either way, the sheds are going to be a blessing.

New Road-blocks

We were told that we would have to submit a request to the Township of Chatsworth asking for permission to temporarily live in a trailer on our land.  Yesterday, although we didn't like the idea, we submitted the letter, and then the bombshell hit.  They want a $2000 deposit to make sure we will not continue to live there indefinitely.

Annie and Abby need us on the land.  We need to be there to keep up the garden, but we don't have money to spare for the township.  They are already going to be getting almost $5000 in permit money.  It makes us wonder what they will throw at us next.

It's not easy to keep from getting angry over the control we are living under, but I know that, personally, our lives are ordered by the Lord, so I shouldn't fret.

New farmers live by prayer and the help of friends

 

I live under intense anticipation or nervousness these days.  One minute Annie and Abby are frisky and hungry, the next day Abby hardly looks up when I come in to check on her.  Then she springs back up again.

I've done a lot of praying for my two sheep.  They are due to lamb in any day now, and I guess I am like a new mama myself.  It's amazing how fast you can grow to love a couple of sheep.  Being a shepherdess is a new experience for me and I am loving it.

We are indebted to our two friends who are sheep herders.  They have been so helpful, and they don't get impatient with all my s.o.s. calls.