Lita Meets the Jacob Sheep

Last year our beloved diary goat Maelita finally had a doe and a buck kid; this is after 2 years of twin buck kids. We named her Lita as she is a smaller version of her mother, being half Nigerian Dwarf. Initially Lita was the soul of quiet politeness. Plus being so petite she is also incredibly cute. When she finally started to really grow, she became short, sturdy and very spunky - so much so that Maelita really did not like sharing quarters with her any longer. Since Maelita is due to kid in a couple of weeks, today we decided that it would be prudent to move her our of Maelita's stall and into the pasture with the Jacob ewes and their lambs - figuring that she would have plenty of company, and energetic lambs for playmates. Lita greeted the Jacob flock by running up to them intent on play, jumping into the air and galloping along sideways. The sheep fled in terror, which is when Lita decided that it would be a fun new game to run after the sheep.

However the Jacob reputation for cleverness is well deserved and they also have relatively low flocking instinct, which made it easy for them to separate out into multiple groups and thus Lita was only able to run after one group at once. Fortunately by evening Lita was finished with the fun and games (at least for now) and was busy eating hay along side a couple of lambs.

Spring Comes Slowly

Sir Walter Wally (NC's own groundhog) predicted an early spring. This was confirmed by the famous Pennsylvania groundhog. I see signs of spring all around. We've got crocuses.

And dandelions.

And even some daffodils looking like they are getting ready.

And then there are the Jacob lambs. NC028-103 had twins (ewe, ram) early this morning. We're now up to 7 lambs from 4 ewes, with 6 ewes yet to lamb. But it still feels so cold outside and the lows are supposed to be in the 20s for the next few days.