Happy and Sad

     Well, the day started out so happy but has had a sad ending. As you read in my previous post I thought that Esther (one of our ewes) was acting strange, like she was going into labor. After my post this morning, I went out to the barn to check on things. We were having a drizzly, icy rain so all the sheep were in the barn with Ruth except for Esther. Megg and I went out to look for her and found her way up in the woods. We brought her back down to the barn and put her in a pen. The picture is Megg sleeping in front of Esther's pen. She never left her all day. I watched her all morning and knew she was in labor but no lamb.  This afternoon we decided we would have to help her. After I checked her, I knew the lamb was dead and we had to pull it. It took us over an hour and both Tim and I were exhausted. The lamb had been dead for a while. It was a beautiful ram lamb. We are worried about Esther. She has had a very rough day. It breaks your heart to hear her call for her baby. She did eat some hay and drink some water so hopefully time will heal.  This has been a very sad day on our farm.
        On a lighter note, Miriam is a very sweet lamb and has been hugged and kissed by all today. Ruth has been very tolerant of all our admiration. I guess she knows that we need to love on that healthy, sweet baby because it makes the loss of our other lamb a little easier. I hope that all goes well with Naomi. So it has been quite a day. Bittersweet, I guess.