My Mother's Day gift...

Happy Monday and a belated Happy Mothers Day!

**(Hello to Tuesday - this was supposed to go out yesterday, but Blogger wouldn't upload my pictures yesterday... and they're very cute lamb pictures!!!)**

I think my family sometimes struggles with me and happy occasions.  I don't think I am an easy person to buy a gift for... I don't wear a lot of jewellery; I'm happiest finding books at a discounted used book store and I don't have a lot of home decorations on the walls.

I do love receiving handmade gifts from my girls (especially the funny non-rhyming poems the littles create) and I do love receiving gifts that make me laugh...

A few weeks back, Derek had been very delayed in getting home after work - he had stopped at a yard sale that looked to have bee hives for sale.  The bee hives were not for sale, but the retired couple selling their items made the stop a memorable one for Derek.  :)  On Mother's Day, as I unwrapped the gifts he had helped put together with the girls I burst out laughing... the kitchy 'yard sale' feel to the items tickled me.

While chatting with this yard sale couple he had spotted some chicken items - rooster salt and pepper shakers and a hen napkin holder.

He knew that they would make me smile and they did.  I proudly display them on a kitchen shelf and roll my eyes every time I think of Derek's stories of the random people he meets.

Now the week before Mothers Day, I had spotted an ad for lambs born to ewes that were going for slaughter - these little boys needed a home and a bottle.  This got Derek and I talking about animal plans around the homestead.  Goats were on the list but the fencing required to keep them in and their habit of chewing everything had us a little cautious.  The idea of a few sheep for wool and milk was appealing to us.

Later that day Derek found another ad for a little female lamb that needed bottle feeding and love.  In a few short emails we were loaded into the van (the entire family!) with an empty chicken brooder making our way to meet Todd and his orphaned lamb.

Todd was very knowledgeable and helpful when it came to our sheep questions.  He has a flock of forty dorset-charolais sheep at his farm but unfortunately had a pair of twins who's mother was an older ewe and did not make it through the lambing.  He had been bottle feeding the twins but was finding it a bit much.  The other little lamb had been adopted and we knew we couldn't leave without this little one in the van with us.

So... my Mother's Day gift came a week early and with a bottle.  The girls named her Jessie (though had she been a boy they were set on the name "Jean-George").  Jessie is very sweet and very attached to us already, following me down to meet the schoolbus and even trying to get into the chicken coop when I go in to feed or clean.

She has quickly become a special part of our family.  :)

Jeanette