Shearing in the Rain…

IMG_5626We were very excited to have Paul Blair come out to shear our sheep!  Paul is a very accomplished shearer from Australia!   He travels around the US for a month or so each year on vacation, but he shears his way all over!   After last year’s awful experience of ME shearing the flock, we knew for sure that Paul would do so much better!

The sheep were sheared in May this year…  just trying to get caught up with my blog postings!   So sorry for the delay, we just have been very very busy the last two months, but I finally see a little break coming out!  :-)

Enjoy the pictures of our gang getting their annual fleece haircut.   We were very happy about the fleece this year and already have sent out a lot of the fleece off to be made into yarn for the first time this year.  Very excited…  We harvested about 50 pounds of fleece off our small flock of 13 animals.  12 sheep and one Angora goat.

There was a light rain falling, so we had to move into the feed room…  It was a little darker than we’d love, but it’s always so iffy when shearing time comes around.  The early spring weather can be so temperamental!  IMG_5615 IMG_5623IMG_1050

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Sam really had a full heavy fleece on him!   He didn’t get sheared in the fall, so he was really due!   I think there is a goat under there…

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They always look so little once they are sheared!  Those big heavy coats are great at making them look really chubby!

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The last two!  Almost done…

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Shadow didn’t really want a hair cut, but he was sure interested in this fellow who was giving all the sheep a good buzz cut!   Shadow pony is always interested in what is going on at the homestead!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience.  And a quick one!   He was done with all the sheep and set up and take down in about 2 hours.   What took me 2 weeks, was sure worth having a professional do in a fraction of the time!   And he makes the fleece beautiful to work with instead of my terrible chop job!   I don’t think I’ll be giving up my day job any time in the future to become a professional sheep shearer!   I will leave that to the professionals!!!

 

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About Mobymom

the banjo player for Deepwater Bluegrass, and the editor of BuckeyeBluegrass.com as well as the main graphic designer of the Westvon Publishing empire. She is a renaissance woman of many talents and has two lovely daughters and a rehab mobile home homestead to raise.

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