More Babies

Hey All,

More baby lambs were born this morning, at about 2 am. They are both females, which means we are off to a great start. They are huge, about 12 pounds each!! They are very healthy and doing great; they have a great mother. So all of our original ewes hit their delivery deadline exactly. They were all expected to be done lambing by March 31st and they did! So that means we only have 1 more goat left and a few more ewes, and they will be done lambing by April 4th or 6th. Then we wont have any more lambs until April 20th, and I leave to go to Kentucky on April 27th. So I will get to see a few more lambs born before I leave. Today was a very short day out at the ranch. All I had to do was vaccinate a few Aussie puppies, feed and water animals and catch a dog that is going to be delivered to a new farm next week. The dogs all run free on the 35 acre property, so catching a dog is not as easy as it seems. The property is covered in hills and trees in the back, and of course that is where all the dogs like to hide from us. So when we go looking for the, we have to hike up and down steep hills covered in mud and trees to find them, and they can move in and out of the trees really fast. It took 4 of us and 2 herding dogs to try to catch this one guard dog today. And this dog can jump barbed wire fences, so she had us running ragged trying to catch her! The poor herding dogs were exhausted too! Finally I was able to chase her into the barn and corner her inside, then I threw a leash around her and chained her up to a dog house outside where I knew she would stay until she gets delivered next week. But it was hard work and poor Mike fell out of his boots trying to catch her! His boots got stuck in really thick mud and he ran right out of them. The mud here is different; it sticks to your shoes and then starts to collect to the point where you could have 20 pounds of mud stuck to each shoe. Then you start sinking in it. It really sucks, and I got stuck in it the day I had to chase the cows and fell in the river. It is horrible stuff! But the dogs dont mind it; they love getting dirty. So I caught the dog, milked a few goats and grafted a bum lamb onto a goat today. It can be a complicated process, but if you have the right variables it can work well. I had a goat that is a good milker- she produces about a quart of milk per day out of each teat. She gave birth to a kid, but it died so she has tons of milk but no kid to suck it out. So I have to milk her every day to ensure that her milk production stays high, so that if we have a bum lamb, we can graft the lamb onto the goat. We ended up with a bum lamb because her mother had twins but only one teat could produce milk. So one of the twin lambs wasnt getting fed, so I fed her the goat's milk. Now when I grafter her onto the goat and let her suck the milk out of the goat, the goat is fooled into thinking that the lamb is actually her own kid. This happens because the lamb is drinking the goats milk, so when the lamb passes a stool, the goat smells it and it smells like her own milk, so she thinks that must be her kid if it smells like her. Then she accepts the lamb as her own kid and will look after it and raise it as her own. That is how the process is supposed to work in theory, but sometimes it is very hard to fool the goats. However, this goat is a good mom and an easy milker so it is working out well. But I still have to go out every 2 hours and check to make sure the goat is letting the lamb drink from her. But it is working out well so far. That is the whole reason Marv raises goats to begin with. He needs the mothers to feed the bum lambs so they will grow up and produce more sheep. He needs the sheep to teach the guard dogs how to guard sheep and become bonded to livestock, and he needs the sheep to teach the herding dogs how to herd. So it is a lot of running in circles to make things work, but it is the only way to guarantee that guard dogs are bonded to livestock before selling them.

Tomorrow is going to be a long and early day because we are getting a skidsteer delivered. A skidsteer is like a bobcat type machine with a bucket on the front. It is used to move hay, or dig up dirt or anything that you cant do by hand. Carrie is looking into buying one, so they are letting her use it for the weekend to test it out. It is being delivered at 8am and we have a ton of work to do with it. We are going to dig out the entire barn and fill it with dirt to make it level with the outside so we can re-panel the whole inside of the barn. Then we are going to try to clean out all the dog poop and mud from the whole general population kennel, which is the whole 35 acres of land, and fill it with clean dirt. We are trying to do it now before it gets too hot and everything starts to smell and rot, so the dogs and animals will have clean dirt and pasture for the summer. So we will be working with the skidsteer all weekend.

Tomorrow, the cell phone network Alltell officially becomes AT&T out here, so I can get my phone as early as next week. I cant get it tomorrow because they wont even have any in stock yet, but next week I can get my new phone! I am so excited. I talked with the Alltell guy today, and he was really funny. He couldnt get into the Alltell systems because they were locked due to the switch, and he couldnt get into the ATT systems because they werent switched over yet, so he just sat in his store and acted really bored all day. I think he was excited that I even came in because it gave him something to do, even though he couldnt do anything for me. But I was his first ATT customer so he was happy about that. So I am excited to be able to get my phone back, but I havent really missed it to be honest. It was hard to adjust at first, but now its kind of nice not having to worry about if I miss any calls or texts. I can just zone out and focus on what I came here to do. Its kind of nice to detach from the world for a little bit sometimes. But I will be back in business next week with a fancy new iphone. Yeah, I know Im already behind because everyone already has the new iphone, but Im still excited.

I learned that there is no state sales tax in Montana. So when I bought something that said it was $1.00, it was only $1.00! It's awsome. There is no tax on anything, even in restaurants. Its different, but I guess they get taxed more heavily at tax time instead, so its not that great for the residents of Montana.

Not much else new, but Marv and Carrie are going to take me to Golden Corral soon and I am so freaking excited! They always tease us in California with commericials, but there arent any Golden Corrals that are close. I am very excited about this, and Carrie and Marv just laugh at me and think Im strage. But Im still very excited about it.

Cruiser is already asleep next to me, and Im tired, so we are going to bed now. See you all later, hope you are all having a great time in California.


Love you all!

Sam

P.S. I got new batteries for my camera, so new pics should be up tomorrow night!!