Too much of a good thing is not a good thing

One can't complain about rain during the winter in western Oregon - it is just part of life.  By the second half of October, we are usually quite wet, and it pretty much stays that way (with the occasional sun break) through May.  This year, our December was unusually dry and it appears that Mother Nature has decided to correct the error of her ways.  After a couple of days of snow, we are now getting pounded with a series of storms coming off of the Pacific.  Just to the south of us, there is a part of the Coastal Range that got 7" of rain over the last 24 hours.  Combine that with snow melt off of the mountains, and we have one heck of a mess on our hands.  Our farm lies between the base of the Coastal Range and the North Yamhill River - which means that every drop of water that rolls down the eastern side of the mountains seems to cross our place before it gets to the river............Let's just say I was surprised not to encounter andy salmon swimming upstream in one of the barns this morning.  Even when the rains stop for a while, there is still so much water coming out of the hills, that it flows in torrents across roads and fields - here are 2 photos of the water coming out of our western most pasture and tumbling down into the stream which runs along our farm.

Lambing has started!

Just a quick note to announce the beginning of lambing.  The girls have started things off with a BANG!  Two sets of triplets were born this morning - a white and a natural colored set.  5 of the 6 lambs are boys, and they are all doing well.  The natural colored triplets were already dry and fed by the time I made it out to the barn this morning, but only one of the white ones was on the ground.  By the way his mother was calling and circling, I knew that there were more in the pipeline, and sure enough, within the span of the next 40 minutes, she produced two more.  The good news is that both of these mothers can count (not always a given in the ovine world.)  Sometimes a sheep mom can't count above "2" and she refuses to accept that she has given birth to 3 children.  Convincing her otherwise can be an arduous task.  Both of these ewes have plenty of milk, so it looks like supplementing won't be necessary.