2 Degrees F.

Cold but it has been colder. As long as I have sunshine, hay, cat-dog-chicken-rabbit feed and running water I'm okay. I took some cute pictures but the lense froze partially closed and they didn't come out. No lambs last night. One mom really needs to deliver her lamb/lambs. She's standing aside, eyes kind of glazed, not eating, not drinking. I don't like what I see...looks like milk fever coming on. When sheep don't eat, and the lambs are taking a lot out of them, they start burning ketones and go into ketosis. Lambs can die inside her and I can lose the mother. I lost my Lucinda and twin ewes that way last year. It was so awful I couldn't talk about it until now. So I am trying to catch it before it happens this year. I have a jug of Propylene Glycol made for dairy cows, left here by Dr. Rachel last year. I gave the mom some this morning. Hope it perks her up. Everybody else looks okay. The cold makes everyone thirstier so I am running gallon jugs of warm water out to the stock tanks. The barn water spicket is frozen so I have to get it from the milk room. I pour the hot water on one spot in the stock tank and it melts the frozen layer enough so the sheep and goats can get their snouts in the hole to drink. I am using cat food cans for the rabbit water now. That's tough because they get so excited when they see me coming they jump around and spill the water. So I make two rounds with water. I climb up the ladder to the hay mow to bring warm water to the hay mow kitties and they drink, drink, drink. That keeps me climbing the ladder, and I love my kitties. One of the new Jersey girl angora does is in heat and wants Tommy Boy so bad. She is leaning up against the fence and they are trying to make love. TB is making all kinds of chortling and snorting sounds to woo her and she is loving it. Does are programmed to mate with the biggest and machoist buck in the herd and Tommy Boy is IT. I wish I could let them go ahead with their affair but I need new blood in the herd and Hecky, our new buck kid from Cape Cod, is not big enough yet.