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Here is a story of determination and springtime.

Kelly and I made a conscious decision late last fall that this year we were not going to "lamb".

Usually the cute little lambs start arriving sometime in mid-February when it is 5 degrees outside and Mother Nature seems to deliver for us at 2:00 AM.  The thought of staying inside late at night and not freezing our rear ends off seemed like a wise and well thought out decision. Apparently we forgot to discuss the concept with the one individual who had other plans.

His name is Tiny.

Tiny is a ram lamb from last year’s breeding and he was the runt of the litter.  Much smaller than any ram lamb we had ever had and just about the happiest sheep you could ever meet. As far as ram lambs go he is no show winner. He is much too small to be a prodigious breeder (or so we thought) and where as most rams are somewhat territorial and love nothing better than knocking you on your butt if you turn your back, Tiny never showed us any aggression at all.  Baby lambs are known for kicking up their heels when they are little but eventually grow out of the practice.  Tiny still does it just for fun. For no apparent reason he will take off running in the pasture and spring into the air just for the shear enjoyment of being a sheep. He makes me laugh.

We separated Tiny from the rest of the flock each night when were not around to supervise and the wire mesh fencing still allows him to be close to his buddies. We were sure it would prevent Nature from taking it's course.   We were wrong and Tiny apparently has more determination than his small statue would indicate.  I don't consider myself a motivational speaker but there has to be something to be learned from all this although I am not quite sure what that is.  Sheep don't climb fences. We checked and there are no gaps in the fence or holes he could have wiggled through....but sure enough a couple weeks ago we noticed that some of our ewes were putting on some weight. (I never mentioned it out loud within ear shot of them for even sheep are sensitive to such comments).

A couple days ago we welcomed the new arrival of a bigger flock.  Our newest female lamb is happy, healthy and a little bigger than I might have expected.  Meet Tina....Tiny's first off spring.

We have six or seven more lambs on the way and it wouldn't surprise me to see Tiny passing out cigars in the barn yard.

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