Days Five through Eighteen

With apologies to both the reader and our wonderful breeding ewes, we are sharing these days of the lambing season in a slide show.  We still have one straggler.  Hebe has not yet lambed, but here are the rest of the 2012 lambs. Each ewe and their lambs are very different... some ewes won't eat for hours, others get up and eat between every contraction... really every birth has its own story... here are just a few...
Julie and Jill each had their second twin almost two hours after the first; Julie having her first at 10 p.m. and her second at 11:55 p.m., coming within 5 minutes of being our first ewe to have lambs born on two different days.
Rosey and Princess had their lambs right beside each other in the barn, each continuing to try to take the other's lamb because that was the first one seen after that final push.
Athena's second-born whose sack did not open at all, hit the ground fully enclosed and had to have it torn open; had taken a breath inside, had to be worked on for nearly an hour; but is doing great after spending days under the heat lamp.
Meara pushed out her first water bag at 12:30 a.m. but did not get her first twin pushed out until 5:15 a.m.; allowing the shepherdess to enjoy both the gigantic full moon and a beautiful foggy, pink dawn.  Her lambs were perhaps our most vigorous, loudly baaing before their back legs were fully pushed out.
Hera, our mother of several sets of twins and two sets of triplets, had a big, single ram this year; all the way at the bottom of the hill... again.
For the shepherdess/s, each birth is a miracle... when the lamb hits the ground, takes that first breath, lifts its little head and shakes it, then that first baa... oh my... sometimes we see it, sometimes we only hear it if the lambing field is really busy, but each time it is a tug at your heartstrings... a miracle.