It was our third day at Sprout Creek Farm, located in a small town called Poughkeepsie in New York, and Racquel and I had just been woken up by one of our teachers. We guessed it was about six in the morning, and were tired as hell.

The farm life has always intrigued me, so when I was given a few choices as to where to complete my week of service, Sprout Creek was a no-brainer.

Back to the story: we stepped outside, onto the dew-covered grass, and headed toward the barn, with the sun just peeping up over the horizon. It was around 40 degrees, and I had on a pair of leggings underneath jeans tucked into thick socks and rain boots. Racquel and I were passing the sheep pen when we noticed something strange about one of the females. As we got closer, we crouched down and saw what I described as a corncob sticking out of her butt.

After about five minutes of laughter and corncob jokes, we decided to tell Farmer Mike what we saw. Well, when we told him, he gave us a pretty weird look, and proceeded to ask if we had inhaled something earlier. We told him we didn’t recall, so he followed us out to the pen. We pointed out the sheep and he took three looks--crouching down and then up--to be sure of what he had just seen. Finally, he looked at us and said “She’s having a baby lamb!” in the most farmer-like voice possible.

Farmer Mike quickly instructed us to grab a pail of water and lots of towels and meet him in the barn. When we returned, everyone was crowded around him as he began the birthing process. Everyone talked about how no one knew the sheep was pregnant and it was a shock to all. After about five minutes, the lamb was out and sucking on a bottle of milk. All of us had grabbed our cameras and were snapping photos of the little angel when one of the other girls pointed out the mother who was making a large fuss. Farmer Mike checked her. It turned out there was a second baby in there. Unfortunately, the second baby didn’t make it. As rehearsed every Thursday back home at our Catholic school, we said a little prayer for him.

Farmer Mike told Racquel and I that if we hadn’t seen the “corncob," both of the babies, and maybe even the mother, would have died. We gave ourselves a little pat on the back, and couldn’t wait to return home, clean the farm smell off of all our clothes, sleep in past six, and tell the story of how we saved a lamb and its mother’s lives

Here's me milking a cow: