The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

•T he I FP • H al to n H ill s •T hu rs d ay , F eb ru ar y 28 , 2 01 3 8 Ask the Professionals DIRECTORY SEPARATION & DIVORCE MEDIATION REDUCE COST & CONFLICT DIVORCE WITH DIGNITY AND KEEP YOUR MONEY IN YOUR POCKET! ACCREDITED MEDIATORS GEORGETOWN, MISSISSAUGA, ORANGEVILLE FLEXIBLE HOURS AND PAYMENT METHODS 1-866-506-PCCS (7227) Professional Workplace and Family Services www.pccs.ca 905-567-8858 MEDIATION 905-601-3268 Halton Region Eating disorders, Anxiety, Depression and Grief for children, adolescents and adults as individuals. Counselling in Georgetown DORDER & ASSOCIATES Areas we support include: COUNSELLING F Please stop by and say, "Hi!" I'm looking forward to serving your needs for insurance and financial services. Get to a better State™. Get State Farm®. CALL ME TODAY. Lora Greene, Agent 211 Guelph Street, Unit 6 905-873-1615 Hello neighbour! 1201596CN State Farm, Canadian Head Office, Aurora, Ontario INSURANCE Andrew Sobczak LICENSED PARALEGAL i459@sympatico.ca By appointment only 519.853.8610 Specializing in: Hwy. Traffi c Act Offences Small Claims Court Residential Tenancy Act LEGAL SERVICE "Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope." - Hal Lindsey Grand Opening Specials with Mani/Pedi Value $10 with full set of Biogels Value $10 For these Specials book by March 15th VNN Nails & Spa nails & Spa Walk-ins Welcome! OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK 905.877.0088 10 Mountainview Road South beside Mac's Milk, Georgetown PROFESSIONALS WANTED to inform our readers & answer their questions Contact Amy Sykes in Special Features to find out about our booking specials 905-873-0301, ext. 237 asykes@theifp.ca It's been a few weeks since I've put togeth- er some words here, and the reason can be summed up in one word. Sheep-- more specifi cally, 'lambs'. Man, I've seen so many births these past weeks that I'm counting them in my sleep. (Get it? Counting sheep in my sleep?) I think I'm delirious. It's been a trying lambing this year. There have been so many deviations from the norm that I'm to the point where I ask, "What's next?" Every year, I take off the same two weeks for the lambing. It's a math thing. The ram is put in with the ewes on the same date every summer-- September 1, for those who want details. (For those who want to know what I mean about 'putting the ram in with the ewes', you might want to have a chat with your parents...) Back to the math thing. The gestation period of a sheep is 145 days, so putting the ram in September 1, the lambs should arrive 145-plus days later. That translates to the fi rst two weeks of February. I booked off 'vacation time' from Feb. 4-18, and was ready to oversee the onslaught of lambs those two weeks. (Calling it 'vaca- tion time' seems so wrong.) Being a denial-driven optimist, in my hap- py little world I also expect the lambs will ar- rive in evenly spaced periods, a few every day during the full two weeks, all between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The fi rst one to lamb, one of our older ewes, presented me with a beautiful pair of twin ewe lambs Feb. 2. I was so excited, a perfect start. I messaged the Brown family with the announcement "They've started!" My family is always happy to hear that the lambs are on the way. I got that set of twins settled in, and waited for the next 'delivery'. And waited. Seven days, correction, seven LONG days later, (after I'd spent an entire week of of- fi ce 'vacation time' watching the rear-end of a fl ock of ewes for some indication that an- other lamb was about to be born) the next one lambed. Once again the text message went out. And again, I waited. And waited. In the meantime, The Sidekick, who is my right hand 'man'.., er, woman, came home from work, sick as a dog. She settled on the sofa in front of the TV, and with the excep- tion of an occasional coughing fi t, was pretty quiet and totally unapproachable. (Actually, I didn't really want to be close to her anyway.) Fast forward to Valentine's Day. That morning, I was feeding the sheep when I heard it-- that tell-tale 'grunt'. Another ewe was lambing! Finally! I watched as the head appeared, and then it was born. I waited for the mom to clean up her lamb and she started to deliver her sec- ond one-- suddenly I heard more grunting at the far end of the barn. In a fast walk, I got to there to see another lambing in progress. In 20 minutes, another, and another, and so on. It HAD really started this time-- in fact, it was so damned rapid- fi re, I didn't have time to text the rest of the family-- not that they'd believe me at this point. By Sunday (Feb. 17) I'd delivered 51 lambs. I tell ya, at times I felt like I was facing a machine gun loaded with lambs for ammo. I was feeling the full effects of sleep depri- vation while feeling sorry for my sick wife. There are still fi ve ewes in the group who haven't lambed yet. The season seems about two weeks late and I'm wondering if last year's drought is the reason-- the dry weather im- pacted everything, which could have delayed the ewes coming in season. Now I'm starting to feel rested, but come the end of March, I'll be back at it again. That's when the second group-- all year- ling ewes-- give birth to their fi rst-born lambs. At times like this, I look at the guy blankly staring back at me in the mirror fi rst thing in the morning, and ask one simple question about becoming a shepherd. "What on earth were you thinking??!!" Machine gun ewes made for a happy Valentine's Ted Brown Farm assessment will be on the agenda for discussion at a Public Forum for the local farming community later this month. The Farm Assessment Pub- lic Forum, put on by the Town of Halton Hills Council and the Halton Federation of Ag- riculture, will be held tonight (Thursday) at 7 p.m. at the Civic Centre in the council chambers. Mark Lindquist, the Provin- cial Farm Specialist for MPAC will make a presentation and be available to answer ques- tions related to farm assess- ment. "The Town does not man- date tax assessment and so this is a great opportunity for the farming community to have any concerns they have related to increased assess- ment addressed directly by MPAC." Pre-registration is encour- aged. Contact Danielle Ed- wards at daniellee@halton- hills.ca or call 905-873-2601 ext. 2345. Public forum set for tonight on farm assessment