Shearing - part two

The day dawned clear and a little chilly but NO RAIN - over night, or in sight. A perfect day for a shearing.



A shepherd is no different from any other farmer - tending his "crop" all year long - making sure the best is available - food, care, etc. But also planning years in advance - planning what ram to use, which ewe to breed - how the personalities of each sheep fits into the flock.




He also looks for the best tools to tend his flock - in this case The Shepherd and Marcia our shearer delux are discussing the new shepherd's crook that "Santa" brought this year. It prooved invaluable in catching a couple of the more skitterish little girls and I heard mutterings of "should have gotten one of these long ago..."







The "sweeper" in the picture above is our friend Margot. She brought her two children, William and Emily to watch the shearing. They were incredibly good and, altho they look just a teentsy bit bored in this picture, they asked some very good questions and it was reported later that they actually had a great time.







Moni's fleece is jet black - no white threads at all save a "leetle bitty white spot" on her neck. We'll just skirt that bit out, don't you think?









We had very high hopes of taking Luna's fleece to the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene this next summer, but what is that old adage - something about pride going before the fall? A marauding neighborhood cat (we are POSITIVE it was neither Neelix or Sinda) got into the greenhouse in the night before it could be bagged up and sprayed on it! The Shepherd was just sick. It will, of course be okay to process, as the dratted pee will come out - but any hope of this being a blue ribbon fleece went out the window.




So, here is this year's harvest - actually I think there were two more fleeces on the potting bench, but it's on the other side of the greenhouse and my camera doesn't take panoramic pictures...

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of our farm life. Now that I am spinning more, I look at the fleeces with a more propriatory nature - but, they belong to The Shepherd. Hopefully he'll share one or two of them with me this year. (Like Arlo's and Moni's and Luna's and .......)