Orpah & Obed

Naomi had the first lambs , twins- a boy and a girl. She is one of my older ewes. Nine years ago she was born to one of my favorite Jacob sheep, Ruth. I have kept the biblical names for this line of sheep, particularly names from the book of Ruth. I think I will name these twins Orpah ( the girl and not to be confused with the name Oprah) and Obed. "And the neighbor women gave him a name, saying "A son has been born to Naomi !" So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David." Ruth 4:17 This is a beautiful story in the Bible and if you read it you will see the son was born to Ruth, Naomi was Ruth's mother-in-law, the mother of Ruth's first husband who died leaving Ruth childless and Naomi without children, or grandchildren . The book of Ruth is the touching story of Ruth, a foreigner, and her love and respect for her Mother-in-law Naomi . This little book in the Old Testament also"shows an oasis of faithfulness in an age marked by idolatry and unfaithfulness." comment in my study Bible. Ruth was the great- grandmother of King David.

Preparations For Spring....

This is Swallow Lane Barnaby. He is 11 months old and he has been having a lot of fun with a small flock of ewes ( female sheep ). Barnaby needed to be sheared and then moved to a pen away from the ewes who are due to lamb ( have babies) anytime now. So this afternoon my shearer, actually Lanny's* shearer & husband, came over to shear Barnaby and a 3 other sheep.Barnaby is now a very naked ram lamb and I decided to spare him the embarrassment of displaying his nakedness online, but I am happy with his condition and he appears to be a ram that will out-ram Goth, given the chance. We'll see.....

Here is my Grandson, also my first grandchild. Hallelujah and thank-you Lord, he is a hard worker and he is now old enough and big enough to do hard work for ME ! Here he stops to pose for me by the goat's house and pen.

As you can see Thorin & Bombadil can really make a mess of their place. CT has been working hard to keep their place fairly clean, they do not cooperate though. So this provides CT with a job. And this is a job that needs doing every few weeks, so one could say Thorin and Bombadil are providing CT a valuable employment opportunity, very definitely steady income.

See? And Thorin and Bombadil also provide manure and rotted hay for compost and garden fertilizer. Once in a while I spread all this around our fruit trees and blueberry bushes. You could even say Thorin and Bombadil are regular producers of a valuable commodity in one way or another.

CT is quick about the job, wasting no time to dilly dally.

Younger sister MN is feeding the goats their favorite treat, soda crackers.Here Bombadil eats out of her hand.

Thora , Goth's sister peers over Naomi's back as I snap a picture of my two newly sheared girls. Naomi and Thora have both uddered up and Naomi looks ready to have lambs any day. Spring is in the air....