The Story of Nova

At the start of this week Nova died after a very brief illness. She was a sheep that was rarely featured on this blog, mostly because she was off with the big flock being wild and free, but she was still dear to me as all of my sheep are, so I thought I'd make a post about her anyway.

Nova made her first appearance on this blog was back in 2015 when she was a hogget. Her name was the best naming joke I've come up with so far. You see Nova had a huge black spot on her bottom. "Nova" was short for "Supernova", which is another word for black hole and... you get the idea. I'm still proud of that one!



It was almost a year later before she appeared again with her lovely lamb in tow. It was a little ewe. I didn't keep her because this was before I had my own flock so my sheep all had to have something to set them apart from the others - Panda's unusual markings, Nova's massive black patch...



Nova's first lamb was just solid white - there was no way I'd be able to keep track of her...



...so off she went.



For almost another whole year Nova didn't appear again, until she showed up with her beautiful Kerry Hill tip lamb.





He was a boy so of course he had to go too.



Nova made her final appearance on this blog last summer.



And as had become tradition, she would have made an appearance this year with her lamb, a beautiful Texel ewe with a massive black spot on her bottom just like her mum. I called her Luna, keeping with the space theme. She was born about a month ago, during the lambing rush as Nova usually gave birth when I had no time at all to take photos. She's still out there in the field. I've seen lambs her age survive without milk but her chances are slim. She won't feed from another ewe. I just have to hope and pray that she eats enough to survive. Another three or four weeks and she would have been weaned anyway. There is hope. I cling to it.

Nova lived up to her name. She truly was super Nova.

Nova



2014-2018
R.I.P.