Jun 02 2011

Bucolic

Published by at 6:00 am under Country Life

It hasn’t all been rain and grumpiness and car trouble, though it is still raining and the car repair is still in progress.

Megan and Rob took care of some neighbors’ sheep and chickens last week, so naturally I had to go over and check out the place, especially since the sheep had just given birth. Two of the ladies had twins! Also, the oldest sheep, whose pregnancy was a surprise, gave birth the day before the neighbors left, to Megan’s great relief. No amount of ambulance experience can prepare you for barnyard births, especially complicated ones. Fortunately, all mothers and babies are fine, as you can see here:

When those little guys are hungry, they are determined! They butted their mothers’ bellies quite hard, but Megan says that makes the milk flow better. You can see one set of twins on the left:

The mothers were incredibly loud. I don’t know if they were saying “Get away from my babies” or “Give me some food” or “What the hell are you looking at?”, but it was surprising in volume. I tried to take a movie of them, and they immediately quietened down for their close-up, but you can hear some of it near the end. For some reason, I could post it on Facebook, but not here. Click to watch!

Steven Spielberg has nothing to fear.

It wasn’t all sheep, though. We stopped to nibble some strawberries – though carefully protected against birds, they were no match for us:

And the chickens were so pretty:

From the house, there’s a distant view of the ocean:

Though it’s hard to tell with the clouds and fog. You’ll just have to trust me.

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2 responses so far

2 Responses to “Bucolic”

  1. Mike Charbonneauon 02 Jun 2011 at 10:26 am

    Boy, somebody was pretty hungry in that video!

  2. guyon 02 Jun 2011 at 5:44 pm

    How lucky to be so close to so many animals, as for my favorite fruit, strawberries, I’m jealous, so are the birds, so it seems.