Sheep Shearing Day!

Maralee liked these lambs a lot.

This is the experience I keep hearing people referring back to, so I wanted to put in a blurb about this unique experience I had. Are you curious yet......the title probably gave it away, but in case you just skipped over the BIG, BOLD HEADING at the top of this page - I got to help out with sheep shearing! Let me tell you, it was quite the experience. I learned another reason I like horses and why I'll probably never own sheep. But never say "never" right?

So, here's the process in a nutshell, picture-style. Maralee and I didn't actually "shear" any of the sheep ourselves, we were more of the grunt labor. It was a beautiful day in the country though!

Aren't they peaceful & cute? Yep, right now they are!

These little guys would come running up to us thinking we had a bottle of milk for them. They were too cute! (That's my hand in the corner of the picture.)

This is the actual "shearing" part. Although, first we had to catch each sheep. Not an easy task, let me tell you....so we let Roman (the younger boy in the pic) wrestle most of the sheep until we could grab a hold to help him push them up to this spot. Once on their back, the sheep were relatively calm, sort of. It was getting them to this spot that was the hard part!

So, these are some shots of the various sheep holding techniques we employed for this job. I may look casual and relaxed in the top photo, but I was actually pinning the sheep against the wall. The next one was a "jumper" so I had to hold it down in a head-lock. This last one was wild as a cat! It was bolting, bucking, jumping and trying to get away as we led it up to here. So, when in doubt of your (or my, in this case) ability to hold onto a sheep by it's wool - sit on it like a horse! I wasn't "sitting, sitting" really but just enough so it would know it wasn't going anywhere!

Well, a professional sheep shearer came later in the day and he was amazing to watch! He could shear a full grown sheep in 2 minutes 30 seconds flat. So, we had to get a waiting line of sheep for him. That meant herding them all in closer so they would be easier to catch and drag. Then we held them in line and took their collars w/bells off right before it was their turn. When he was almost done shearing them, we had to quick get their collar back on before they were up and running - literally! They would "bound" all over the place! This was not a job for anyone with weak arms, let me tell you.

Herding them in closer & Maralee waiting her turn for the "professional."

There you have it, a sheared (and purple spotted) sheep! The purple spray is for any knicks they got in the process, some were more purple than others. Our hands were a bit purple too at the end of the day. I must say I was feeling the efforts of our labor that night and the next day, but it was nice to be able to help out and I got to practice my French for the whole day.

Till next time!