In With The New - Orchard Day 2

After running a couple of errands this morning Luke and I were orchard bound to get in the 7 new fruit trees. Trees, shovels and fertilizer loaded, we were ready to start digging holes. As we passed the sheep barn, Luke asked if there was supposed to be babies in there. I went to make a check. It was at that moment the day went to hell in a hand basket.

Oh, there were babies alright. One of Mom's jacob sheep had lambed as well as one of her nubian does. One of my ewes had gotten a piece of hay twine wrapped around her back feet and was hobbled. The harder she tried to get out of it the tighter it got. Luke helped me get her cut loose and as I started the gather up the goat kid, I stumbled on another that was still damp and chilled. I picked both up and he lead the doe to the barn. She had no milk and no interest in her children. Oh boy. Just the way I wanted to start the milking season! I dried the cool baby and tubed her some colostrum. The other kid was fine, but screaming his head off. He got colostrum as well. I went to see if my doe that kidded yesterday might have some milk. Not a drop. Her little hooligans had slurped her dry. I got the doe settled with some grain and hay and as I rounded to corner to toss the rest of the hay to the goats, there stood one of my yearlings with twins. Thankfully those kids were up, dry and had nursed. They were moved to the barn. I called my mom for bottles. She arrived directly to tell me she had a set of twins in her barn on the hill. She was able to milk out some colostrum from that doe and we got the babies fed. The chilled one was still a bit weak so she will be spending a few days in the house with my mom. Finally 2 hours after I started to the the orchard, I got back there. Luke had the trees soaking in water and had dug a few holes. We cleared the bramble patch that had started in the corner and finished digging. Another couple of hours passed and the trees were planted and the brush hauled off. I held gates while Luke fed a large round bale of hay to the cows. Back to the barn to check and finish feeding. Thankfully everyone was fairly settled. I headed to the house to start supper. Luke  stuck his head out of the door. Lettuce? Did you pick lettuce? No. I turned around and headed to the garden. Lettuce and carrots picked, I could now start supper. A late night feeding and all was well. For now..... ;o)