I spent a hour sitting on a hillside in the rain this morning. As regular readers know, we brought home some “milking sheep'“ last summer, so while most of the flock had their babies in the spring, I kept two ewes separate so they could lamb in the fall and be milked through the winter. This week, one of those ewes, Millie, had a set of twins. The other, Godiva, looks ready to have her own babies any minute.

Now, lambing this time of year has some risks. Namely, that is can still be very hot, which will make labor arduous. Waiting until later in the fall puts us up against winter, however, which is even harder on the moms and babies. Consequently, I was keeping an eye on the forecast, hoping it would stay temperate. What I did not even think to worry about was rain, because, well, in western South Dakota, moisture comes in sudden, fast-moving storms or not at all.

The day Millie’s twins were born, it was unseasonably cool, but not cold. Perfect birthing weather. The next day was warmish and sunny. The next day it started to rain, and it hasn’t stopped since, which is how I found myself on the hillside.

This morning, it wasn’t cold enough to be considered cold, but the wind had picked up, and I was concerned. Sure enough, when I went to check on the babies, they were doing ok, but not great. I tucked them both in my coat, hunkered down, and tried to decide what to do next.

At first, I didn’t want to bring them all the way back to the barn, as their mom is shy and I knew it would stress her to be moved. Also, it is still August, and it was only supposed to be raining for another hour. As of this writing, however, I have moved the little family (plus Godiva) to the corral beside the barn, as it has been raining all day and the forecast is now predicting more to come with dropping temperatures.

But, what I actually want to tell you about is the podcast I happened to be listening to for part of that hour on the hillside. Since I can’t figure out how to reformat this post in substack, my video talking about the podcast is shown first above, the youtube version of the podcast comes next, and underneath the photo below you can find the link to just the audio of the podcast is that is your preferred method.

Anyway, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on his thoughts, and I am not going to say too much more just now…other than this does feel like a portal I’ve been moving towards for a while now, and an articulation of why it has been so hard for me to write anything lately.

Meanwhile, the picture below is Millie’s babies after they’d been warmed up in my coat but before they got moved to the barn. I don’t want to clog up your inboxes with more emails, but I will put an update about them on social media in the coming days for those those who are interested

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