Yes, I'm still here

Contrary to popular belief, I am still among the living - In fact, my sister actually called me to find out if I was OK, cause I hadn't blogged in so long! - (well at least someone is reading, huh?)

I actually have been trying to shake that darn cold I got a month ago - I decided that I would try getting more sleep - meaning I've been heading to bed at 10:30 instead of 12:30 - them's my blogging hours - night owl that I am - (doesn't do much for the ahem "married life"...when one is a night owl and the other is a morning person... TMI, I know)

That and combined with getting the business end of Washington Wool dot Net off the ground - we are now a Washington Corporation - ready for memberships to come rolling in the door!

Seriously, I really do believe that this web site will be a great thing for small farms like ours who cannot afford to do a big marketing push just for the few fleeces that we have each year - plus helping to educate the public about our animals and our farms. For instance, some of us have been asked if we kill our animals to get the fleeces - "Ah, NO!" These critters are our "fiber partners" - and speaking of fleeces and "fiber partners" - ours are all "nekked"- - Friday was SHEARING DAY!

Before

We call them our puff balls on sticks -













After -



Look kind of scrawney, don't they? - but actually they are all in very good condition according to Marcia - she was very pleased at how they looked, and they actually behaved themselves (realitively) well this year

I took the morning off from work - thankfully our receptionist, who had been off all week due to some health issues was able to come back in, so I didn't have to worry about my co-worker being there all by herself on the phones (that was another thing that sucked up my energy last week - we have 12 lines on our phone system and it seemed like they were ringing in 2 or 3 lines at a time - all day long - thank heavens for headsets!)

The Shepherd had been devising sneaky ways to get the boys and Gwen & Pearl penned up until Marcia came - we were here first shearing on Friday - she has about a 2 1/2 hour trip including a ferry ride to get here - so it becomes a major deal to have her come. She has been shearing for us for about 7 or 8 years, I think - she starts off with giving each sheep a pedicure - which goes really fast, so I didn't get any good pictures - but what is there to see - a sheep on his or her butt getting their toenails clipped - you got the idea...

She did the boys first - get the squirmiest ones out of the way first - Scooter did real well - Arlo - not so much - here's how his "hair cut" went:



Help - I've been sheep-napped

















Marcia is really fast - she shears over 2000 sheep a year - it is backbreaking work - starts on the belly and gets that stuff out of the way then goes up one side and down the other





























And "voilla" - a big white pile of fleece - this is our first really white fleece - I think it will be NFS...












It took them a few minutes to sort out "who was who" They don't seem to recognize each other without their "jackets" on - silly sheep.

Well - it's past my 12:30 bed time- but here's a sneak peek of the rest of our shearing -