Well That's a Surprise!

Surprises, life is full of them. Sometimes surprises are great; like discovering $20 in your winter coat the first time you put it on for a new season, or finding eggs in a birds nest as you walk through a field. Other times surprises aren't so nice; like finding that predators have gotten into your chicken pen. We have a lot of surprises here on Hill Giant Farm, of both the "woohooo" and "oh crap" variety. This weekend, we had a very pleasant surprise.

On Saturday evening as we went to put our sheep in for the night we noticed that one of the ewes was hanging back all by herself. This isn't really typical behaviour so Randy went to investigate why. As he got closer to her he hollered "she's hanging back because she had a lamb." I thought I heard him wrong at first-we've been done lambing for about 6 weeks. But nope, I heard him correctly. Ewe 685 gave birth to a big, healthy, beautiful ewe lamb, in the middle of June. Both Mom and the lamb are doing well. Given the unexpectedness of her arrival, we have christened the lamb Surprise. She's awfully sweet and is blessed with a very good mama. Below are some pictures.

Surprise is a little shy at first (if you look you can see her little legs
 behind Mom). Here she is hiding behind her Mama.

Getting a little braver. But still sticking pretty close
to Mom.

Mom and Surprise share a tender moment as Surprise
stops for a drink.