Never a Dull Moment - Twins

With blurry eyes and cold body the two hour checks are still enforce.. Poor Maggie is so round that she is moving as slow as I am today. Despite her complaints I put her into a kidding pen. Her last year baby Murtle was not happy about being on the outside of the pen. So I pulled up a small sit and sat down with her while watching Maggie pant and cry. For those who do not remember Maggie is a SCREAMER and I mean SCREAMER. The kind of screaming that runs thru your body and puts every nerve on edge. With the lack of sleep this is harder to take - the things we do for love.

As the labor progressed poor Murtle grew closer and closer into my lap. As I rubbed her head and talked softly to assure her - Maggie got louder and louder until the whole barn was wishing it all to be over. Finally a head popped out. Silly Maggie is such a digger - for those who do not know it is part of their labor process, however she dug so much that the cloud of dust in the air was chocking me. I started coughing and coughing till I thought I was going to throw up. Not something I cared to do - so I tried with all my might to stop coughing. Maggie still digging and moving about as the poor little one was just peaking out with it head getting banged on the side of the barn with each turn she made. Finally I got in there and wiped it's face so the little one could breathe. After about 10 mintues she finally sat down and pushed. Pushed and Screamed. Pushed and out the baby came. Maggie went about licking it all over and then back to the digging - another little one on the way... While Maggie went on pushing for the newest addition I went over and wiped the first one down a bit to help out. Besides all that dust was not good for the babies either.

After the kids finally got cleaned up I could see that the first was a boy and the second was a girl. What a girl - see was up and nursing before the boy had even attempted to crawl a bit. The girl was bold, brave and out for herself. Everytime the boy stood she knocked him down. Then when he finally tried to find a teat she pushed her head or body in front to block him. She even was so bold as to scream everytime he took the teat in his mouth so Maggies would go right over to her and left the boy in the dust. Finally he got his nerve up and started to be bold and brave too. After a couple of great nursing moments he was ready to hold his own but he did not count on how pushy this little gal would be. She has the upper hand for now.

By this time is was 6:30 pm and time to get the rest of the girls feed, watered and checked. I finished the other animal chores on the farm and walked back into the house. By this time the winter boots felt like cement and my face mask was slightly frozen to my upper lip from my dripping nose (I know gross) but true. As I got out of the layers I realized I had not eaten all day - no wonder I was a bit dizzy. A quick glass of OJ and off to a shower - you see it has been several days and well over due.

See you when I dry off....