Saturday, March 14, 2009

Simple Joys...



*My Christmas Cactus continues it's on-going Bloom Fest!
Winter has hung on a long time, so I consider it a little bright spot in my days --a gift from God. There are still new buds coming! I don't know what I did to bring this on.



*Meet Quad-Mom.
With all the talk about Octo-Mom, I just couldn't resist a little blurb about our "natural" quads born to this Mama ewe. The amazing thing is that they are all a very good size, are all healthy, all have nursed and need no medical attention whatsoever! We did divide them up. Quad-Mom now has only two lambs, and the other two lambs went to new mamas with single lambs. Generally, most ewes can only raise two lambs successfully and so when triplets or quads are born, we seek to graft the "extra" lamb onto another ewe. When we see a ewe is lambing, we wait and watch to see if she'll have a single or twin lambs. If she has a single, we quickly grab it, wipe all the birth-slime onto the "graft lamb" and put it in a pen with the ewe and her own lamb, hoping she will smell all the natural newborn-smells and accept the grafted lamb as her own. It's been working very well for us thus far.



*Another simple joy is our Bloomin' Narcissus (paper whites).
I planted them on Ash Wednesday, figuring they'd bloom by Easter, but they've been especially happy and have decided to pop-out early. Aren't they pretty? My family insisted that they go from the supper table to the laundry room since they've bloomed. Why? Well, my sons insist that the *fragrance* is that of urinal cakes found in the men's restrooms. After thinking about it, I suppose they are quite right. I did think that the "fragrance" was giving me a sore throat (I'm smell sensitive). A&J thought they had left a dirty diaper under their kitchen table, so perhaps they are a "toilet flower" after all. Still, I'm grateful for a little bit of bloomin' beauty just now.

*The Snow is melting! It was 52* today and the snow and ice are melting into puddles and creeks and there's mud, mud, mud everywhere. It's glorious!

*Hard Work is a gift. We've had some sunshiney days of late, and working outside together is really a pleasure. Falling into bed exhausted brings the gift of a good sleep.

7 comments:

  1. Wow- that's fascinating about the lambs -- I guess you CAN fool mother nature LOL! Thanks for the great pic -- I love to see the lambies!

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  2. Your photographs are always so special to see Jody.

    The lambs are beautiful. I always enjoy seeing them.

    We all dislike the smell of the paperwhites at my house too, but I can't resist growing them, anyway. There is just something so rewarding about them, in the midst of winter.

    We woke to giant snowflakes falling today, but it's started to rain now, with winds expected this afternoon. I think the groundhog was right!

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  3. My Christmas cactus started blooming again, too, a couple of weeks ago. It now has 3 big blooms and looks so pretty. I had no idea it would bloom again, but then I don't know anything about them. I didn't do anything to mine, either.

    Love the lambs!

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  4. My Christmas cactus is doing well also. I've never had one before but assumed it would not last. What a lovely surprise its ongoing gift of joy has proven to be.

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  5. The flowers are beauties even if one smells of peepee! Very funny. Wishing I had a Christmas Cactus too. I love Quad-Mom!!! The babies are precious.

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  6. I love the pic of Quad-Mom's little'un. I pass by little lambies on my way to school everyday and I just have to smile (and suppress a giggle) every time I walk past them. They are just sooo precious! Their spindly little legs and their long tails that waggle when they nurse...sigh.

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  7. Hello, so funny about the smell of the narcissus. I had some in our bedroom when we were newly wed. We awoke to the bloom. Freaking out at what the cat might of done...only to find it was the paper whites. 20 something years later we still get a kick out of paper whites.

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