Mother Nature's cruel joke, and the sick sheep

Heavy snow is early April and late March is depressing.   Six inches of snow at the end of April is some sort of cruel joke.   Here we're hoping for grass, counting on grass, and all of a sudden the whole world is white again.

Pepper in the white s^%$

On top of that one of the ewes has mastitis and has become very sick.  She went from looking normal weight to very skinny faster than you could believe.   Monday was the first day she didn't come running to eat with the others.  I've put her and her 2 lambs in the barn to treat her and keep them out of the wet snow.    She has to be milked twice a day, which I've just learned how to do.    I never had to before, but now I have to and I did learn.   It's not difficult, you just have to get the technique down.   She's too sore to let her lambs nurse, so I've been preparing formula for them and they drink it out of a dish.    Once I get good enough at milking that I don't spray milk all over me and can hit a bucket, I will give the good side milk to the lambs.  One side of the udder is giving obviously nasty looking milk, and the other is normal.  

She also has to get penicillin shots, and has a betadine rinse and vaseline treatment for her udder.   All of this, plus her separate feed and water, takes about two hours a day.   Then there's all the time I spend hanging out watching them,  trying to see if the lambs and the ewe are eating, pooping, chewing cud (the ewe anyway) and behaving at all normally.    The most encouraging sign I today was when I was going in and out of her stall she kept wandering off, so at least she has the energy for that.  

Plus I have a cold and just feel like crawling under my blanket in bed.   This week could be a lot better.  Ok, going back outside to see how they are doing and try some baking soda water in case she has acidosis as well.