Planting, Day Three: We Have a Problem

After a much needed day of rest yesterday, Dad got off to a good start. During the course of the day, my Dad and I planted 170 more trees, bringing the total to 350 chestnuts in the ground. Good progress. Over a third done.

But somewhere around the three hundredth tree, we suspected we had a problem. The five boxes of trees were rapidly emptying. On doing a quick check, we realized that, indeed, we only have 400 out of the 1000 trees here on site. Hmm.

Somehow the seller had forgotten the order. Without a packing list enclosed on any of the boxes, we didn't realize the error until we were almost out. (Really, though, we should have suspected earlier.) Some, hopefully, shipped out today. Those (few?) will hopefully arrive on Wednesday, with the remainder on Thursday. That's not much time to finish the planting.

It's amazing how little in life goes off just as expected.

In other news, Phil went into the greenhouse today for the first time in quite a while and could not believe the size of the plants. They are doing so well!

We had our ninth ewe lamb born this, to our purebred but unregistered ewe, Ewok. Last night froze, though I don't know how cold it was. In keeping with the most common pattern this year, Ewok lambed sometime between 6am and 7am. And I realized that, with sheep, there is no way to win.

When we found the lamb at 7:15, Ewok was doing a good job licking her off. The lamb was standing, but shivering violently in the cold, still extremely wet from the damp ground and the birthing process. Her umbilical cord had torn off long, and she was standing on it. In retrospect, I still think I needed to intervene. Dry off the baby, get colostrum into her, cut off her cord and coat it with iodine to prevent infection. That's all very standard in the books I've read.

Ewok reacted so oddly to me coming in. I may have not come slowly enough; may have taken the baby away too quickly, so she didn't see where the baby went (right on my lap next to Ewok). Rather than staying near, helping me dry off the baby, she wandered off: sort of looking for the lamb, but when I carried her to Ewok, the ewe refused to accept her baby back. Sort of. She did lick it a few times.

Phil and I made a lambing pen for just the two. Like with Bethlehem, when Ewok showed signs of skittishness about having the baby nurse, we tied her up to give the baby a chance. And the baby did nurse. A little. But overall, the outcome for this lamb is bleak.

What is better: leave the lamb alone and let it freeze or die quickly due to starvation (which comes on lambs quickly after birth if they don't get the needed colostrum right away)? Or intervene in the lamb's life and risk parental alienation? In either case, the human loses.