About a month ago, we had a surprise lamb in late May. He came from a yearling ewe that we had previously thought had lost her lamb. Just like her mother, Penny gave no signs of being pregnant and dropped her first lamb with nothing more than the bleat of a baby to announce it's own arrival.
The afternoon that Penny dropped her lamb, Jason moved the sheep, as planned, into a pasture that encompassed a section of the creek running through the farm. We have a small bridge spanning the creek but as the creek is not very wide, it is common for the sheep to simply hop the creek to get where they're going.
Being a first-time mom, Penny had yet to learn what her baby could and could not yet do. While Penny had no problem hopping the creek, her toddling lamb still wasn't quite strong enough and ended up hopping into the creek instead.
HannaMae watched Penny's lamb try to follow it's mother and when she saw the lamb fall into the creek, she ran to her Papa who she knew could save the lamb. After a moment of translating "the lamb is bubbling!" into "the lamb is in the creek!" Jason took off for the creek. He threw himself on the ground and pulled the lamb from the water. a moment of inspection determined the lamb to be fine and he gently tossed the lamb across he creek to his mother.
The lamb had indeed been bubbling, being able to only get his nose above the water about half of his jumps. Being spring the water in the creek easily runs several feet deep and had HannaMae not seen the lamb, he may have very well been lost.
Three cheers for HannaMae! Who still will begin telling you some version of how she saved the lamb whenever she gets the chance!
