Just Another Thursday . . .

Yesterday afternoon, in search of eggs, I heaved myself over the livestock gate to squelch through the mud and sheep shit in the paddock. It was about forty degrees and raining, as it had been pretty much all day, and I was intent on getting to the chickens' nest and back into the house as fast as possible.

I was not so intent on that goal, however, that I failed to notice the lamb on its back in the mud, kicking its legs in the air.

That's not a good thing. Just so you know.

I went over to him (all the sheep in the paddock right now are boys) and pushed on his back, hoping he had just slipped and couldn't get traction in the mud to get up. I got him up on his feet, but he buckled in front and went down on his knees. So I ran inside to tell A., who promptly got his gun and sent that lamb to its reward a little earlier than we had planned.

The male lambs were all due to go to the butcher in a couple of weeks anyway. We've had problems before with male lambs succumbing to pneumonia or whatever, brought on by cold, wet weather in the fall. So A. figured that rather than go out in the morning to find the lamb dead in the paddock, he'd just take care of it while there was still light enough to work on it.

He gutted it and skinned it and hung it in the shed, where it will stay for a few days to age, slowly driving the dogs insane. It's going to be a fun few days. And then probably on Sunday, we'll cut it up and have lamb in our freezer once again.

You just never do know what a random Thursday at Blackrock may bring.