spring, round two

a roof over my head.....yes, in spite of the spring rains, we now have a roof.
We don't yet have new lambs. We are expecting some....maybe more, since we had "horny" the ram out with the girls one morning. That is a reference to what is called a "rack" in other animals.
Contact me....if I don't have the lamb you need....I know where the lambs are falling....whatever state you are in.
I am hoping this spring storm is not affecting many of you shepherds. I'm sorry I have not been writing. I have been leaving the house at 7:30....to get to the old house at 10 or so....and leave about 4 or 5 hours later to come back home.
Did I mention the cistern? The workmen uncovered a big hole under the back porch floor.
Although I could not see to the bottom. There was room down there to park a volkswagon. Maybe a VW bus! The thing started out at 4 feet wide and got bigger as it went down. Yesterday, the leaves came up to the top.
Yes, my constant trips with my little green yard cart....have filled the pit.
My question is.....where do I put the rest of them????
I still have both sides of the house to rake....I still have part of a big hill in the front to rake....OH my, do you suppose those leaves willl settle enough to double the amount in there?
Funny thing about finally achieving roof.
I climbed a ladder into my house for the first time in three weeks, and walked up the stairs to bask in the solid roof....only to stare out at the trees thru the sides of the house. Seems that the recent inch of rain was raining in the walls, instead of the roof. Do you know what happens when old shingles are scraped off a house? Tiny grains of 100 years of shingles fall thru the cracks in the roof....then rains wash the grains into pretty droplets on the floor. I have sandpaper on the floor along with pieces of old boards that fell down instead of off. With the hammering and shoveling on the rooftop, some of the remaining BB windows broke....leaving nice piles of sparkly glass on top of my sandpaper.
Today....if it's not raining....I am supposed to get siding to cover up the wide cracks in my side walls. That will be different, since there were years of shingles covering the walls before.
People are stopping in the street to say how nice the roof looks.....and are we putting the porches back?
I told the banker and the contracter yesterday...that by the end of the month I will be running to the bank to say I can't afford the porches. Did they think I was kidding?
On the subject of lambs arriving. The ewes tend to watch the weather....the worse the weather, the faster the lambs arrive. So watch out all you northern shepherds...if there is icy rain and snow....those ewes will be digging holes in your barn hay for you-know-what!
You know why so many of us prefer to lamb outside on grass? Because the ewes dig big pits inside, big pits in winter's rotten hay, much of it wet and smelly....and the poor little lambs are plopped into puddles of goo, and have to stagger to their feet astride piles of old hay their moms threw all over the floor. When we lambed in Wisconsin, the ewes would all try to lamb inside an old horse stall. We had to change the hay in there after every dozen ewes, because they all wanted to lamb where some other ewe had labored. The hay would get slippery with labor fluids.
Sorry...I hope no one was eating breakfast out there.
Shepherds deal with the craziest things. Right now I am watching carefully....when I am here...because the inch of rain started the dam running in the rams pen....the water seeps out and runs between the barn and the west pastures. The ewes have to jump thru the water...and I sure don't want a new lamb going thru that water.
Have a wonderul friday...and I hope all your lambs are the best and most beautiful lambs you have ever seen.
Peeps