Happy Birthday!

Ophelia, one of our Jacob ewes, met me in the field on Sunday afternoon as I headed out to work on the fence. Rose asked me if I should be working on Sunday, and I was happy to tell her that working on the fence in short sleeves on a breezy Sunday afternoon was a treat for me, washing dishes or laundry would be work and I certainly didn't want to do that on such a lovely afternoon.

But back to Ophelia. She is a delicate thing. A bit shy. You might remember our friend Julie brought her up from a farm in North Carolina. Well, she usually doesn't greet me in the field. This Sunday she came up and baahed at me. I asked her if she needed anything. She baahed again. I said to her, "You are going to have your babies, aren't you?" Then she meandered off to graze with the rest of the flock.

Early in the morning yesterday I noticed Ophelia was not out grazing with the gang. Sure enough! She was waiting in an open stall with two healthy little ram lambs, white with black spots! What a good girl.

Well done, Ophilia. Welcome home little fellas.

By the way, we started milking the goats yesterday morning. Maggie and Rachel separated the babies at night and we went out to start the process again. Portia was so cooperative. We were very pleased to see how well she went back to milking. Her daughter Clover is a challenge to milk due to her small udder, but she behaved just like her mother. Nita, on the other hand, is still the dancing queen, and surprisingly (?) enough, her daughter Cornflower is just like her. Nita always eventually settles down. We hope that Cornflower will as well. We remember when Cornflower and Clover were born. Hard to believe they are mothers and milkers now.

The wind is blowing and the temperatures are dropping. We walked around our fruit trees the other day in the sunshine, praying that God would protect their fruit crop from the freeze that should hit tonight. They are all half full of blooms. Year before last we lost all the fruit to freeze. It was pretty devastating for our family to not get peaches, cherries, apples, plums and pears that year. That made us really think about the folks who depend on their fruit crop for their livelihood. I sure hope the freeze is a fast one that will not damage all of the crops in the region. We will be praying that warm winds will push that freeze away from us.