With Christmas fast approaching it’s that time of year again. The time when every ewe starts thinking about Paris and the Spring Lamb Catalogue. Will ears be up or down this year? Will fleeces be long and curly, white or brown?
Above we see a picture of supermodel Naomi Lampbell from last year’s Spring show. She does look a tad surly in this picture but that’s Naomi for you.
As for this year’s show, thanks to a groundbreaking agreement with haut couturier, Jean Paul GoatHair, I can bring you – straight from the sheepwalks of Paris – the 2010 Spring Lamb Catalogue!
Here we see our favourite size zero waif, Kate Fleece, modelling the latest in ear styles – Le Flop. Note how only one ear is allowed to flop, the other has to remain straight or it’s not stylish and all the other lambs will laugh at you.
And here we have a startling new look, Le Lapin, modelled by Claudia Scheepfer. Yes, ears are up and down this year.
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 Have you ever thought about designing book covers for ewes? A steamy romance with Fabio the ram standing on a windswept hilltop, his chest fleece poking provocatively from his unbuttoned shirt…
Well, if you did – and I suspect that a few of you might be doing so now – there’s one essential element you’d have to include – scratch and sniff. Because, for sheep, lurve isn’t in the eye of the beholder, it’s in the nose.
Or so we thought.
It’s tupping time on the smallholding and this year we’ve retired three of our older ewes and brought in some new blood. Our ram, Harmon, who we keep in a separate paddock until he’s needed, has been getting ready for the last couple of months, pacing the fence line, curling his lip back in anticipation, and … greasing up.
Greasing is a ram thing. They start to produce a musky grease in September. It stinks. It breaks out as liquid beads on his head, chest and armpits. And the closer the breeding season comes, the more he produces. By October you can smell him from twenty feet away. If you need to lift him – which you might for foot trimming – you try to avoid placing your hands anywhere near his armpits or they will come out slicked in grease.
But the ewes go crazy for it. Forget tall, dark and handsome. Short, greasy and smelly does it every time.
So, two weeks ago we raddled our ram – which is sheep talk for applying liberal amounts of coloured wax to his chest so that any ewe he mates with will have a coloured patch of fleece on her rear end. It makes it easy to see who’s been covered and calculate the date they should lamb. And to make sure every ewe’s in lamb you change the raddle colour every 14 days. Ewes cycle every 16-17 days and only go to the ram on the days they’re in season so a ewe with a multicoloured rear end is a problem – something ain’t working. Or the grease is working too well:)
Anyway, freshly raddled with L’Oreal’s finest, Harmon burst out of the gate. He chased, he head-butted, he curled his top lip back, he sniffed. He spent two whirlwind days with our last remaining older ewe. Then nothing.
One of the new ewes came into season and pursued him all over the field. She head-butted him. She threw herself at him. But he chased her off. He didn’t want anything to do with her.
Which is when we started to panic. All the new ewes were black-faced. The old ewes had been white-faced. Except one – Black Ewe. She’d lambed successfully with our previous ram but had spent two years with Harmon without mating once. We’d assumed the problem was with her and had even put her on fertility treatment. But now we began to wonder. Did Harmon – a black-faced Suffolk – have a problem with black-faced ewes?
Had #racefail struck our paddock?
Things did not look good. For spring lambs or for Harmon. A ram who wouldn’t touch 80% of our flock was not a ram with a bright future. And it was getting late to bring on a replacement.
So… time to think creatively. Could we whiten the sheep? Maybe dust their faces with flour? But was that racist? Should we sit Harmon down and have a serious talk with him?
We dithered for four days, putting questions on animal bulletin boards. Had anyone encountered anything similar? No one replied. I had the flour ready. Then… the next black-headed ewe came into season and Harmon reacted immediately. He chased her everywhere. This time it was the ewe that didn’t want anything to do with him. Not after the way you treated my sister!
For one whole day she ran and he chased. Both were out of breath, both needed long lie-downs. Then the next morning we awoke to find the two of them inseparable and a copious amount of purple dye.
He’s since wined, dined, and tupped another of our new ewes so maybe he’s got over his problem. The big test will be next week when the first ewe comes back into season. Maybe he’s just not that into her?
Next week: Why wives should raddle their husbands, by Elin Nordegren
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Lambing came to a successful end on Saturday with the birth of another set of twins – girls this time – and both arriving at a convenient hour for the shepherdess (the middle of a sunny afternoon rather than the tail end of a long cold night:)
Both girls were large and, as you can see in the photos, quite dark – on the chocolate side of black.
Here’s the first girl showing she’s inherited the Roman nose of her Suffolk father (aka Harmon Ramm)
Here’s one with her sister discovering the reason why lambs never appeared in the Exorcist – they can’t handle the 360° head turn. This is the moment before gravity intervened and brought her legs up and over into an unexpected back roll.
And talking of chocolate, here’s the lamb who had to wear the chocolate-infused leg splints. Aren’t the healing properties of chocolate amazing? He can now run, bounce and gambol as fast and demented as the other lambs.
And here’s a shot of fast, demented lambs having a rest. There were nine of them but keeping nine fast, demented lambs in one camera shot was beyond my powers.
I think the lamb second from the right (who exhibited amazing bunny impersonating skills from birth) now shows a remarkable similarity to Gus Honeybun – a TV rabbit from the 60s and 70s. This lamb is destined for a career on the stage.
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Triplets this time – two boys and a girl. The last boy was smaller than the others and later that morning we noticed he was having difficulty walking. Both front legs were knuckling over so he was walking on his wrists. This happens from time to time – no one’s completely sure of the reason but if you splint the legs the muscles can often strengthen and the lamb can be back gambolling splint-free in a week or so. The only problem is finding a splint.
The best are wooden lolly sticks but we didn’t have any in the house so…
We had to drive into town and buy a pack of Magnum chocolate covered ice creams and – for medical purposes only – consume two as quickly as possible. The things shepherds have to do for their flock:) Below is a picture of the result (not me with chocolate all over my face but one freshly splinted lamb.
Here he is with his sister:
And here they all are in their nest, sheltering from the drizzle.
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Another batch of sleepless nights as we went through the ‘is she lambing, is she not?’ for two whole days convinced triplets were imminent any second. Our ewe looked enormous. She couldn’t stand without help. She looked ready to explode…
But no lambs. And no sleep. Until yesterday when she had two enormous boys – both already bigger than the two born two days earlier.
Here’s the first boy coming out of his ‘day house’.
Here’s his twin brother blinking into the early morning sun. Both boys have interesting markings.
And, not to be left out, here’s the two triplets gossiping about their new cousins.
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A bit later this year and twice as stressful. We rounded up the first two ewes on Saturday, walked them to the Lambing pens, set up the Lambcam baby monitor TV feed and waited. And waited. Then disaster struck – our first ewe had ringwomb (failure of the cervix to dilate) She’d been in labour for several hours and it was now 2am on a bank holiday. Would the vet come out? Could we summon up enough French to explain what had happened?
Yes to one, no to the other. The vet wouldn’t come out but we could go to him and he’d give us a calcium syringe to inject. If we could find his house. It’s one of the wonders of the French countryside – how any letters get delivered when so many people live in houses that have neither name nor number and neither does their road. But it’d be easy, he said, his house would be the only one in the village with the lights on.
We drove into the pitch black night, got lost twice, found the village and a house with a light on. But it was a bedroom light and the shutters were drawn. Should we knock?
We drove on, found another house with a light on, then another. Perhaps we should phone again? Then we saw a house with an outside light on and a man in a dressing gown holding a syringe. Aha, the local crack house…
:) So we raced home, made the injection and waited/hoped for it to take effect. There’s no one hundred per cent solution to ringwomb. Fatalities are common – to both ewes and their lambs. And that night was no exception. We lost the first lamb and the mother is still weak. But she did produce two very healthy, very bouncy lambs.
Here’s the boy, showing excellent ear control, pretending to be a rabbit.
And here’s the girl – with not such good ear control.
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Lambing officially finished at eleven this morning with ... yet another set of triplets. That's three out of four giving a grand total of eleven lambs this year - enough for a football team (or soccer, if you're from the left side of the pond)
Here's one of the latest arrivals - barely two hours old - learning the joys of a good nuzzle.
Here's one of the older triplets demonstrating how useful mother's are - especially when the hay net is just out of reach.
It doesn't take lambs long to realise that the warmest, most comfortable bed is their mother's fleece. In a month's time most of our ewes are going to have lamb hair:)
And finally we have a lamb demonstrating what the best dressed lambs are wearing this year - thigh high brown boots with matching eye and nose markings.
For the interested, the lambs are Suffolk crosses - a Suffolk ram crossed with a 'sheep of the region'.
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Lambing continues apace. And what a pace. Last year was the first year we ever had triplets. This year we've had two. And in between the triplets came twins so the maternity stables are somewhat full at the moment and we've had to take both stables from the horses.
Rhiannon is not amused at having to give up her warm stable but Saffron is the bigger problem. She likes sheep, she's curious and she has big ears - which block the LambCam when she pokes her head over the stable door to watch the lambs. And she's taken to nibbling the wooden box that houses the LambCam.
Anyway, here's the first of the pictures. These are the twins resting after a hard day being stared at by a giant horse's head.
Here are the second triplets when they were four hours old. We've got them pencilled in for the Olympic Synchronised Lamb event this summer. Two are naturals, the third needs some work.
Here are the twins trying out their new overflow accommodation - a summer house on the lawn.
And here's one of last week's triplets wondering where his summer house was.
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The lambing season is officially underway. Nice Ewe, who was due yesterday and had been on the point of exploding since Monday, gave birth to triplets at eleven last night. For the interested, she had two girls and a boy weighing in at three tons each (according to the mother - who should know:)
Here they are at age nine hours and a quarter. Nice Ewe's eye says it all.
Even at nine and a quarter they're fast and inquisitive. Point a camera at them and one's off exploring and headless by the time the shutter opens. Here's one of the few non-headless snaps.
They're pretty much the same at ten and a quarter. Here they are outside on our lawn. We give them a couple of hours outside each day if the weather's good then release them back into the field when they're big enough.
And finally a close up. Note the patented newborn woolly jumper - several sizes too big to allow plenty of room for expansion. And in two months time they'll need it - they'll all be the size of large woolly beach balls.
Now I'm off to pack for my trip to Dublin. There'll be more lamb pictures on Tuesday.
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Lambing is officially underway. It's due to start Wednesday but as usual no one told the ewes who all look enormous. Yesterday we caught up Nice Ewe - who's due on Wednesday - and moved her into the deluxe maternity stable ward. Today we set up the LambCam so we can monitor her remotely from the house (and, as the camera has a microphone, listen to her as well. So for the next ten days* I'm going to have the 24 hour Sheep Channel live by my bed - and you would not believe how noisy a sheep grinding her teeth can be:)
Rest assured there will be lamb pictures.
*I do get a respite Friday thru Monday as I'm off to the Phoenix convention in Dublin where I'm a guest.
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Is it really four years since the last Spring Olympics? Well the answer must be yes or this reporter has just been fooled into taking a lot of lamb pictures. And handing over a couple of dozen gold, silver and bronze ear tags.
First on the podium we have the medal ceremony for the knobbly knees contest.
And then there was this photo finish in the 50 metres, two hills and a large rock race.
As always there is a seamier side to the world of professional athletics. Here we see competitors queuing for the mandatory drugs test. On the left the two scientist lambs (you can tell by their white coats) carefully analyse the samples.
And here's Security coming over to confiscate the camera. Drugs in sport is always a touchy subject. "I told you - no pictures!" says the guard on the left.
Meanwhile, veteran athlete and now mother of three, Scrappy, shows what she thinks of having her picture snapped by the paparazzi.
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Yesterday was a long day. And even longer for Scrappy - our last ewe to lamb. She started to lamb in the morning but by the afternoon still nothing had happened. She wasn't pushing, she wasn't showing any distress - in fact she was distinctly laid back by the whole affair. But she was lambing - in slow motion - and dilating even slower.
Hours passed. Something was wrong. Could it be ringwomb? Come eight o'clock we called in the vet and he gave her a calcium injection for ringwomb (a tightening of the cervix that prevents dilation) Two hours and one breech birth later she produced an enormous boy followed by a slightly smaller girl. By eleven our lambing season was officially closed and the lamb TV monitor, which has kept me awake for large chunks of the last month*, could be turned off.
Then we got up the next morning to find triplets. Scrappy had had another boy in the night. Somehow it had evaded Shelagh's final check of the night before. Either that or an opportunist orphan had snuck in during the night.
Here's a picture of mother and triplets. The oldest is less than twelve hours old.
*Ewes snoring, wheezing and grinding their teeth a few feet away from your ears is not conducive to a good night's sleep. The worst night was last week when the snoring and grinding was interrupted by piglike grunting and kerfuffling. It sounded like a wild boar - which do visit us every now and then. The horses, in the stable next door, panicked and came charging out. So, add whinnying, galloping and farting to the mix. And loud agitated baas from Scrappy. The boar, being at that time the least wild of the assorted animals, decided to beat a hasty retreat. How do you get back to sleep after that?
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Villagers of Tetbury in England have turned to sheep patrolling the streets to reduce crime. And if you don't believe it the BBC video is here.
It's the usual story: lack of police on the streets, an increase in opportunistic petty crime, the desperate call for armed livestock to be drafted in from local farms. But history teaches us that, though more sheep on the streets may cut crime in the short term, what happens when you ask the sheep to leave and they don't want to go?
I'm reminded of Britain just after the fall of the Roman Empire. Ravaged by pillagers, the ancient Brits looked to the continent and invited flocks of woolly-coated Angles and horned Saxons over to protect them. More came. They liked the place so much they decided to keep it for themselves and drove the Brits to the far western hills. Even Arthur couldn't stop them for the sheep pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Even Excalibur.
I hope I'm wrong but in the meantime the villagers of Tetbury are overjoyed with their woolly protectors. They've rigged an arc light on the green that points a powerful sheep-shaped beam of light into the sky. And a red Sheep-phone has been installed in the village pub. But reports that a large woolly rocket-powered tractor has been seen in the area have been dismissed as fanciful.
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This week's kitten's guide looks at extreme camouflage. Of course today also happens to be Human Fool's Day in the kitten calendar (as in most things kittens are 11 days ahead of their bipedal friends)
So, first up we see Xena cunningly disguised as a lamb (or maybe the rock - she is an expert) and Kai as her mother. Kai, always the martyr to his art, had to take on a lot of extra bulk for this role - which meant extra meals and snacky things, and a course in reverse liposuction.
'How is it done?' I hear your say. 'They look so lifelike.' To which the answer is - hours in make-up. The trick is to start off by using a fishy-flavoured foundation - always popular with the fashion minded kitten - then move on to the latex mask and the woolly jumper.
Talking of woolly jumpers, here's Kai disguised as another lamb playing King of the Castle on another rock - or is it Xena?
Here we see Saffron, our French Trotteur, coming over to watch the shoot. Xena, being a small animal, does what all small animals do when loomed over by a much larger animal. She pretends not to notice. Kai, on the other hand, unsure about Saffron's views vis a vis fishy-flavoured foundation, decides a hasty retreat is the thing to be beaten.
And just to show that none of the above pictures were faked, here's Kai disguised as a pop-up book from Amazon.
Remember, kittens, you only have until twelve o'clock noon to make a fool of your human. After that it's down to them.
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Snow!
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Mar. 19th, 2007 @ 04:43 pm
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Just as our garden was wondering if it was spring or summer ... along comes the snow and a couple of woolly mammoths. Well, woolly lambs anyway. The snow's melted now but we're in the grip of Arctic winds and intermittent sleet. Which means a busy time for us ferrying lambs in and out of the building - they shiver outside in the sleet and get stir crazy in their pens when it stops.
The lambs are filling out with every passing hour and can now leap tall boulders at a single bound. I've taken some video footage of them playing which I may post. Watching lambs play is endless entertainment. They are full of energy and have little co-ordination - so much racing around, falling over, four-footed hops, unexpected swerves and smirky cuteness.
On the writing front, I'm aiming to finalise my US tour this summer. I'll be attending Westercon in San Francisco (Jun 30- Jul 3) and Readercon in the Boston area (Jul 5-8) and I'm looking to arrange signings in both California and Mass.
As for the UK, it looks like I'll kick off the tour on June 7th with a joint book launch with fellow Brit and Baen author, John Lambshead. It may be at the Melton Mowbray pub in Holborn, London. Details are fluid at the moment - as they would be seeing as a pub is involved:)
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