Hello Winter!

Our weekend of sheep shenanigans, chickens, and an 80th birthday celebration

Winter has arrived, my second favourite season. Wasn’t autumn beautiful? The light in the mornings and at dusk. Golden. Our first frost made it before the official start of winter. We still have tomatoes in the garden - not for long though. The frost will sort them out pretty quick smart but I hate to pull them off the vine when they are still trying to ripen. The poor things are about to get a rude shock;)

There’s another addition to the hen house - not a hen. Can you guess?
Let me show him to you ….

Isn’t he adorable. His name is Pickles and he is an absolute sweetheart.

About a month ago we lost our beautiful rooster, Berry. He was 5 and a half, and for a pekin, that’s quite old. He was born on the day of the dreadful fires here on the Far South Coast, and to keep my anxious mind optimistic, I took photos of two (one being Berry) fluffy chicks in teacups and their sweet mumma, Honey (another favourite chickadee of ours).

One of the fires local to us was nicknamed Beri, so I decided it was fitting that the chicks were named after the catastrophic natural disaster they had been born into. The other I named Myrtle (also a fire name).

Anyhoo, Pickles lives inside our house at night and has the run of the enclosed chook house during the day. The two girls we have left are very bossy and Pickles is a little young to fend for himself, so for now this will be the arrangement. Ahhh my heart is full. And yes, I am aware of how kooky that sounds but I’m 53 and I do not care. Haha

Amongst a lovely belated 80th birthday celebration for my mother-in-law, and having family visit and share wine and eat cake and laugh lots, we also had some paddock shenanigans going on. I shall share every detail, don’t you worry about that! ;)

It’s lambing season for us at the moment, and a very early lambing season too I might add. So, each night we bring all of the herd up to one of our house paddocks just to keep the lambs extra safe and also, if they lamb during the night or wee morning hours, we can see them easily first thing. Each morning, I go to check to see if there are new lambs. On Sunday morning there was one. But surprise surprise, the mother was the sheep we thought was not pregnant. In shock, I wandered over. She’s a sweet natured girl and was happy for me to come close and hold the baby and all of the squeezing that goes on when I get my hands on a fresh bubba lamb. (they are the most adorable creatures!). Cute aggression is real.

I noticed that the ewe who we suspected was having twins, and was also her first time being pregnant, wouldn’t move away from the new lamb and mum. Then I noticed blood on her and realised that she too had recently given birth but no baby in sight. So, I went for a little wander and found a tiny bundle of black and white fluff on the other side of the fence. She’d given birth straight through the wire fence!

I scooped the little bundle up and brought him over to his mum, but she didn’t want that one, she wanted the one the other ewe was feeding. Next minute, the feeding mum butted away the younger mum and gently nudged the second baby towards herself. She began licking him and doing all of the motherly things a mum sheep who’s just given birth does. That little lamb tried to feed too.

Housten, we have a problem! went through my mind. We’d never had this predicament in the paddock before. One mum wanting both lambs and the other not wanting her own lamb but someone else’s. What a shemozzle. I needed to bring in help.

I went to get Pete and together we examined the situation. We made the executive decision to leave everyone alone for just a little while to see what would happen, but as we were about to leave the paddock, Pete mentioned that the extremely motherly ewe had very little milk. I hadn’t noticed that yet with all of the happenings. He was right. It looked like she had absolutely nothing. Then I noticed there was no blood or any obvious sign of her having given birth.

The penny dropped. The first time mum had given birth to twins and the motherly mum, who we had thought wasn’t pregnant, hadn’t actually given birth at all. She’d just decided that she wanted the babies to herself.

It was so sad. She is the most amazing mother when she has babies, and we felt heart broken for her. I quickly googled ‘inducing lactation in non-pregnant ewes’ and it is possible but it needs hormones and could take a week and even then it’s not guaranteed. Plus, the ewe who had given birth had a full udder of milk and obviously wanted one of the babies.

Catastrophe in the paddock!

But there is a good end to this story, don’t worry.

We managed to get the actual mum of the twins up into the yards, with her babies. The other ewe quickly joined the rest of the herd and seemed content to eat grass and move on. It was touch and go for a bit but we managed to get the ewe into a very small space so she was forced to let the babies suckle. It seemed like she was rejecting both of them by the time we got her separated from the other ewe. But with persistence, over the entire day, and us milking her a bit and helping the babies suck, she formed a bond and was letting them suck and seemed to be nurturing them both.

The second twin however was still struggling to feed this morning, and a family member who wanted a sheep as a pet (and who has other animals too) has now taken him back to her place and will bottle feed him and create a spoilt little sheep who will be the delight and mischief of their place (just like our Little is here with us). So, it looks like all will be OK.

Exhausted much, though.

So that’s our ‘hello Winter’ weekend. Tell me about yours?

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Oh, before I go and check on the new mum and bubba for the 5th time this morning, I wanted to let you know that the doors to Little Life Stories (my personal life writing course for women), will be opening again next Monday the 9th of June.

As with the last intake, there will be limited spaces available to ensure that each member gets as much support as I can muster. It’s important to me that each person who joins Little Life Stories feels supported and guided through their personal life story writing. I want them to get it done and I think the hands on approach really gets people moving forward on their writing journey.

Over the next two weeks I’ll be sharing more about about Little Life Stories, and the details around the bonus offers (woo hoo!) that will be included this time around.

The people on that email list will receive: a 10% discount when they purchase the course; a bonus 1:1 session; an extra little gift from me in the mail; plus they’ll go into win a gorgeous deep green, personalised linen covered journal to keep their notes and writings in. Lots of extras for this new group of Little Life Stories writers.

I’m so excited about offering these extras. I feel like Santa!

If you are feeling inspired, or wanting inspiration, to get your precious personal story started and out of your head and onto the page, Little Life Stories is the perfect way to make it happen. It gives you all of the inspiration and motivation plus, the most important part, accountability to start and continue. You will have someone walking alongside you for the entire writing process. Your own personal cheerleader and guide. Plus, a lovely little community of writers in the same boat, that you will get to connect with each month.

It’s a lot of fun, too!

Click the green button if this intrigues you and makes you want to know more:

Alrighty, I’m off to check on the new mum and bubba. Must grab my third cuppa too! Have a lovely week!

PS If you’d like to know a little more about Little Life Stories or you have some questions that are popping into your head, please hit reply and ask away:) And don’t forget to sign up to the Little Life Stories newsletter too!

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If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a new offering to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I also love the good old-fashioned art of letter writing, in particular, and of course, all things stationery. I have a gorgeous letter writing group for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project.

I write about the connection between my precious Nan and I, in a letter bundle here: Dear Nan.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! Hit that reply button to let me know you’re here. ◡̈ xox