Shearing Shots

Another spring shearing is in the books and this may have been our best shearing yet.  The fleeces are a little messier than I'd like, but they aren't terrible.  The weather, with the excessive rain and several high wind events, has been extra challenging this winter.  

Bill, our shearer for the past...many years...has stopped shearing.  Without his big shearing trailer with it's ramps and chutes to rely on, both Tring Farm and Final Frontier Farm had to set up in-barn working systems to handle their big flocks.  

I watched how both set ups worked out and decided to set up a similar system over here.  Tring Farm kindly loaned us all the gates and panels we needed and helped design the areas and angles and it worked a treat.  

The sheep were all penned in the aisleway stall which funneled into a small catch pen which funneled into the chute which fed into a tiny catch pen where the sheep were then turned around and backed out onto the shearing board.

The fleeces might have been messier than I'd like, but the shearing itself went great.  Taylor Schwartz came over from Mayslick, Kentucky, and did an outstanding job with our, um, challenging interesting flock.  I've got more pictures to post tomorrow.

Cheeto

Big Moose marched into the holding pen...and then decided maybe he really didn't want to be the next sheep in the barber chair.

All those beautiful baby curls :'-(.

Even prettier on the inside.

Mini Moose watching.  I have a video to upload of Big Moose being sheared, but the internet is so slow tonight that I barely got these pictures loaded.  You can hear Mini Moose calling to him.  First hair cuts are probably a bit scary.

"They are."

Remember Mini Moose's dark gray stripe running down his shoulders as a lamb?  It's still there!  I'll try to remember to take a picture tomorrow.

Tabitha

Count Chocula

Big J aka Jared

Good old Salt.  I think I've taken a shearing day picture of her at Final Frontier Farm every year for the last...many years.  Seemed kind of funny to be taking a picture of her on our farm.  Seemed kind of funny to not be shearing with Bill, too, but that worked out as well.  

It's Going To Take More Than A Couple Weeks

I've been told the only difference between a good haircut and a bad one is...about two weeks.  I think these are going to take a bit longer.  When the majority of the flock was shorn back in March, we didn't shear the oldest sheep.  If you are frail and thin or not super mobile, you shouldn't have to work hard to stay warm until the weather breaks.  

The weather has broken.  Or is broken.  It was 90 yesterday.  In May.  That extra wool needed to come off.  I managed to get Ewen, Woolliam and  PPPP sheared...and only had to call the vet once. Needless to say I'm not going to quit my day job and start shearing sheep anytime soon.  Or any time.  

PPPP doesn't look too bad.

Well, relatively speaking...

A little Biscuit and Muffin break midway through :-).

Kate nervously watching yet another storm headed our way.

"Rebecca Boone.  I'm trying to take a picture of Ewen."

"Whatever."

Handsome Ewen

"She snipped me under my jaw and to make matters worse, because it's summer and fly season, she called the vet out and she put six staples in on top of it."

"I"m sorry, Big Wool :-(."

By this point it was raining hard so I sat down with everyone to wait it out.  You can tell by Kate's ears (glued to her head) that she wasn't enjoying the storm break as much as I was.

Wherein We Finally Admit Maisie Has Been Possessed

We had our concerns after the Halloween debacle where/when she completely behaved herself out in public at the humane society fundraiser at the local Dairy Queen.  Still, Maisie is nothing if not a comedian and we decided she just had more fun making us look like fools walking around with our huge entourage of animal control experts.

"Seriously."

As spring shearing approached, I once again got nervous about how we were going to handle her.  We don't tip her upside down like the rest of the sheep because we are still worried about her ingested ball of hay twine that we can only assume is still floating around in her rumen and could cause trouble if it got stirred around.  

Bill hates shearing her.  It takes at least two people.  She's obnoxious and fussy.  She bites, kicks, tries to knock you down.  She's also short and built like a rhinoceros and her belly is so close to the ground that you can't get to it without getting down on your knees.  

She spent all last year with belly wool hanging down like fuzzy dice from a rear view mirror.  Bill apologized, but said he was worried he would cut her and I could tell also that he'd had enough of her for one year.  I asked if raising her up on a shearing stand next year would help.  "It might, if she'll stand on it."

I pulled the old shearing stand out and cleaned it up and Tim made sure it was still in working order.  When we got ready to shear Maisie this year, Bill pulled it into the shearing area, next to his clippers.  We looked at each other, looked at Maisie, laughed a bit nervously, discussed how we'd get her up on there...

...and I don't know, honestly, how it happened, but all of the sudden she was standing politely on the stand by herself with the white plastic chain behind her head and Bill was off and shearing.

Barely even a tail swish! :-o

At the very end, when we removed the chain so Bill could shear the last little bit where it was resting around her ears, she did eventually make a move and got away from us for a minute.  When it was all said and done though and she calmly trotted out of the barn with just barely a sassy glance over her shoulder, I still felt uneasy.

I think she's been possessed...by a good demon...and honestly...that's a bit frightening :-o.

Spring Shearing

Our favorite shearer, Bill Haudenschield, was in town for a few days last week (with his nephew Dustin :-) so we decided to go ahead and shear a week or so early this year.  It was a beautiful day, the company was good, the sheep all behaved (mostly ;-) and the fleeces look good.  Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Lila

Rebecca Boone

Woody

Muffin

Biscuit...all those pretty curls :'-(.

The video.

Renny

Daniel Note Liddy in the background.  Just after I took this picture, she stuck her head through the gate and grabbed a packet of french fries!

Murphy

Clover Belly

Levi

Levi

Chocula

The Little Darlin'...

...who actually behaved quite well this year!
This is the extended version of the video I posted the other day.  I just love these!

You'll notice a few sheep didn't get shorn.  They are the oldies who don't have enough fat on them (Allie, Annabelly, Billy Belly and Mrs. Pepperpot) for me to feel comfortable taking away their woolly jumpers before we are certain the cold is over for the year.  

After a couple weeks of 70s and 80s, we have now, of course, turned a bit colder, but with the barn shut up when it's windy and plenty of hay in front of them, everyone is doing okay.  The warm sunshine has been appreciated though for sure.  And look at that green grass and bright blue sky!  It matches my hat :-D.

And here's a new puzzle!  Enjoy :-).

"When I grow up..."

"...am I going to be a sweater?"

We're counting on it...but it would be nice if you'd try to stay a bit tidier :-o.

The 2018 sweater making preparation is not far off.  The bigger flocks getting ready for lambing are shearing now.  We won't be far behind, especially if this crazy weather holds up.  It won't though and the surest way to get it to cool back down will be to shear the sheep...

Speaking of sweaters, I've decided to take the Carbeth back from 20 and re-knit it for the Iknitarod, which starts this Saturday.  Wait a minute.  This if probably not making any sense to anyone who isn't following on Instagram, now that I think about it.  Let's back track...

I finished Baaxter's Carbeth.  I was between sizes and went up instead of down...and should have gone down.  Not only that, I wasn't happy with my decrease stitches (what shapes the sweater and makes that point in the top center).  

Not only was the right side not as even as it should have been, but I also had some mild puckering on both sides, front and back.  Both of these problems could have been fixed with an aggressive blocking...which would have made the sweater even bigger.

So my first thought was to trade it to 20 (who looks great in it) in exchange for the Ford sweater that I'd like to have back ;-).  Then I saw that cute video of the afternoon I knit out in the field and got all sentimental about it and now I'm going to re-knit it for myself during the Iknitarod.  Sorry, 20.

Before I do that though I wanted to practice those stupid decreases, so I decided to knit a teddy bear sized sweater...which is oddly how my last winter Olympics challenge ended, now that I think about it...and here's a link to that post.  Oh wow, I'd forgotten about the Burrnie/Daniel incident!  How sweet to go back and remember :-).  

I finished the sweater in time for the closing ceremonies and I think it turned out very cute.  I completely fixed the puckering issue and figured out how I want to do the right hand side decreases.  I'll be ready to restart on Saturday!

Just to keep the bear sweater exciting, I'd pulled out a skein of handspun yarn that I thought would be enough yardage.  Boy, was I wrong.  Luckily I remembered that I'd spun it during the Tour de Fleece a couple years ago and I still had my on paper notes about who I'd spun and yardages.

Okay, I spun that FOUR years ago.  Good grief!  Thank goodness for the blog records :-o.  I'd spun that from a friend's flock in hopes/plans to make her something from it...which I obviously never got done.  Luckily that roving is still here (still in hopes/plans to still make her something from it) and I was able to spin enough more to finish the sweater.  

I believe it's a Perendale fleece and I really enjoyed spinning and knitting with it.  I think fiberpusher may still be buying fleeces from this flock for her breed study offerings.  Here's a link to her shop and they'll also be at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in May.  Yikes!

Yep, the fiber season is getting ready to start :-o.

A Little Off The [Muffin] Top

Long wooled sheep (Cotswolds, Lincolns, Border Leicesters...) can get pretty uncomfortable around here with our "lovely" summer heat and humidity.  A couple here, namely Hershey and Spud, have had a great deal of trouble with the heat in the past.  

While I've been told the wool acts as an insulator against the heat, I feel comfortable calling shenanigans on that.  A few years ago Spud started acting off so I took his temp thinking he was sick.  108!  Remembering how much shearing helped Hershey his first summer, we did a quick emergency shear while we waited for the vet.  Within an hour his temp was back down to an acceptable 103.

Since then we've re-sheared Hershey, Spud and Murphy in late May, early June.  While Spud has still had an occasional heat stress issue, we've learned how to watch and deal with it.  Heat stress is nothing to fool around with, people or animals!  We were all glad to see Bill the other day.

Well, except maybe B. Willard ;-).  That's him trying to open the gate and get out.  Willard is a clever gate opener.  He knows how to push or pull each gate with his foot.  I added him and Rebecca Boone to the re-shearing list because both fleeces were a bit felted this spring.  Not sure if this will help or not, but worth a try.

Remembering heat stressed Hershey, who was at the time a dark colored (now gray) long wooled lamb, we sheared little Muffin as well.  I hated throwing away her sweet little lamb fleece (the fleece I held on my lap while she napped as a tiny lamb) and cutting off her cute little muffin top and chubby cheeks, but I knew the summer heat would be way too hard on her.

"My mom is right over there so I guess I'm okay."

"I thought I didn't have to do this until I got older."

This is a bit long because Bill took so much extra care with her tiny non-B. Willard sized body.  I love her mom keeping a close watch on them both.  You can hear Biscuit in the background (higher pitched baby voice) and Jester weighs in a couple times too (deep quiet baaa).  

We picked up everyone's 'too short to do anything with other than make some wool balls' trimmings. Muffin got her own "bag" and look, it's a baby sheet!  I guess someone must have known we'd eventually shear a baby here.  There is a good amount of wool in there for a two month old lamb.

"Jennifer told me I had to go tell Muffin her hair looks good even if I don't think it does."

It does look good though and momma looks even better.  She had a fiber break that was causing her to look a little Velveteen Rabbit-ish.  She'll be ready to become a sweater by next spring.

They both will! (Insert positive thinking, rinse, repeat...)

And she really is that black underneath.  And she feels like velvet :-).

But you can tell by her droopy ears how much that took out of her.  (Insert positive thinking, rinse, repeat!)

A new Biscuit and Muffin puzzle :-).  Click here or on the picture of the puzzle to play.

Enjoy!