16 October 2026
Hope got the sock
Latte had twins in August. The next morning we were meant to be leaving for a weekend away, whale watching, for Anthony’s birthday.
Latte is our first ewe, and this was her second set of twins. Her first pair were Watson and Willow, so we had at least some idea what a normal start was supposed to look like.
This wasn’t it. She fed the boy and wouldn’t feed the girl.
A lamb that isn’t feeding doesn’t have long, and we were about to not be there. That turned what should have been a fairly ordinary morning into a decision we needed to make quickly: cancel the weekend, or find someone we trusted to take over.
A friend offered to take the little ewe lamb for us, so we went.
By the time we got back, she had a name. Our friend had called her Hope, and had kept her warm in a sock while she worked out the bottle.
Her brother hadn’t had a sock, so we called him Dobby.
If you know your Harry Potter, a sock is what finally sets Dobby free. Ours is still waiting.
Hope came home as a bottle lamb, and she’s still one. That sounds simple enough until the bottle starts deciding the shape of your day. If you read about the storm, she’s why Anthony ended up sheltering with the sheep while the rain came through. Her feed time didn’t care what the weather was doing.
A bottle lamb doesn’t fit around your day. Your day fits around the bottle lamb.
There are good parts to it. She comes running. She knows exactly what the bottle means. You get to watch an animal very closely in a way you normally wouldn’t.
There is also the part where someone has to keep doing it, every day, because a lamb that depends on you doesn’t care whether you’re tired, busy or meant to be somewhere else.
Nat has thought about this carefully. Rescuing a lamb? Still yes, every time. Bottle-raising another one? Not keen.
So next lambing, we’ll be watching Latte closely. The hope, appropriately enough, is that next time she feeds them both.