Getting ready for Lambing and Easter

River Oaks Lana and Freida before shearing - rich black color from their Holly genetics.

Lambing seems to have sneaked up on me this year. I've been going a mile a minute for weeks now and suddenly I realize our first BFL lambs are due in only a week!  I've got to put in an order to Premiere from some Kolostral, tags, Nutri-drench and a new battery for the electronet.

This is the time of year I do daily bag checks.  I'm comparing bag shots from last year with actual delivery dates.  And according to last year's photos, Rhyn should deliver pretty close to her due date of April 10th.  I'm hoping for my first sets of BFL twins this year.  But I will be plenty happy with healthy singles and attentive mothers.  We've got two BFLs that I'm pretty sure are bred, but they could still prove me wrong.  Not much for bags on them yet.

I had the vet out yesterday to look at Cordelia's eye and give Shachah his shots. Cordelia seems to have scratched her cornea. I got a new tube of antibiotic eye ointment (my old tube was expired) and gave her a shot of Banamine which I had on hand.

Shachah got his rabies, distemper and Lyme vaccinations and was tested for heartworm and tick borne diseases.  He came up positive for anaplasmosis, so now we have to start him on doxycycline for four weeks.  He'll need five pills a day.  He only eats once a day, so I'm going to have to get him to take a little snack laced with pills in the mornings in addition to the same at his evening meal.  I suppose I'll have to put the pills in venison burger...

Zeilinger's got my 32 pounds of washed wool in time for me to get the 23% discount on processing - that discount covers the cost of shipping. In fact they've already gotten my white BFL roving done and will ship it back right away. The rest won't be done until late May-early June, they are so overwhelmed with orders.  I'm having a three-way swirl roving made from my longer-stapled black, moorit and mioget Shetland fleeces, and I'm having all the white Shetland Mule made into batts for felting (13 lbs).  The natural colored BFL is being processed into combed top - it was kind of felted after washing, so combed top was the way to go. I think the processing is worth every penny, Zeilinger's does such a nice job on everything.

Off to work this morning and then I'll be on a mission to clean this house in time for the big family Easter dinner here tomorrow. Last week we were fortunate to win $250 in gift cards from the grocery store we work at.  It really helps to cover the cost of groceries!  A couple years ago our youngest won it in cash and we split it with him since it was our groceries that won the prize (they pick an employee at random and then go check their cupboards for the store brand items,they pay $10 for each item up to 25 items).

Oh and I almost forgot, our youngest finished his schooling two weeks ago and has landed a full time job with benefits! He'll be a help desk operator for the Apple iPhone after he completes 5 weeks of paid training.  The bad thing is the training starts tomorrow, Easter Sunday!  Strange, huh? Oh well, we are just so happy he's got a job and will be able to make the payments on his student loans.  This is such a tough time to find a job.  He plans to continue to working as a freelance videographer which is what he went to school for. But he needs to invest in a good computer and camera now that he's done with school and won't be able to use their equipment any more.