Lamb-A-Long Contest | Foxfire Fiber & Designs

When I was expecting my first (and only) child, my girlfriends and co-workers had a baby pool. There was a chalk board in the break room at work where everyone took a shot at guessing the baby's arrival date, estimated time of arrival, gender, and birth weight. There was a pot, winner take all, and you tossed in a buck for each guess. It was fun and a good diversion for me during the last long weeks of pregnancy, though I couldn't help but feel just a little pressure.

When it comes to lambing, your guess is as good as mine. When will they arrive? At what hour? In what numbers? Who knows? I'm exhausted already from just thinking about it and listening to the mothers chew their cud all night on the baby monitor. At this rate I'll be a zombie shepherd by the time the first lamb touches down.

Here's how you can have a little fun and help me pass the time:

For each week, see if you can predict which ewe will deliver next and the number and gender of her lambs.

Each Friday, we'll see who guessed most accurately for that week. And I'll enter the names of all blog commenters into a drawing to win a grand prize: 2 skeins of Foxfire Fiber Wool Alpaca Twist sock yarn featuring fine wool from my flock blended with alpaca fiber and a copy of Lisa Lloyd's Thistle and Fox Socks booklet (which features some amazing sock patterns designed for my yarns and very pretty pictures of my flock). You can enter anew each week. The grand prize drawing will be at the end of lambing season. (Does anyone care to guess when that may be? : )

Here's our team of ewes in order of seniority:

Pansy – 9 year old Cormo Veteran

Kodiak – 5 year old Cormo Cross

Our 4 year olds:

Calypso
Cassandra
Thalia

My only 3 year old (2006 was a thin year for ewes):

Verbena

And the 2 year olds (first time moms):

Tupelo
Pheonix
Corona
Zuni
Galveston
Aberdeen
Helena
Mystic

Lamb-A-Long with me. And watch what happens.

FYI, our ram Teaberry's courtship ran from October 31 to December 13.