Finally, the sheep are shorn. The new shearer from Vestal was very interesting. I'm quite sure we will never meet for shearing again. This rather delicate, older gentlemen was overwhelmed by my sheep and kept making statements like:
"You didn't tell me your sheep were as big as ponies." (I told him they were big."
"I usually do small flocks." (18 is not a large number of sheep to shear.)
"These sheep weigh twice as much as I do."
"I have to take a break and get something to eat." (This remark was repeated many times over the course of the day."
Between the breaks Randy and I got the lambs vaccinated. What an amazing wrangler Randy is. It took Matt and Randy to bring the BIG BOYS, like Andrew and Frodo and Bilbo over to the shearing board. Our gentle shearer, who I think might be a college professor, has just been shearing for three years, and took a LONG time to get the wool off the sheep. We had to hold the 300 pounders up for him to shear. It was a long day. AJ and his Army/Rutgers friend, Hector, arrived for their visit and helped up catch, worm and vaccinate the lambs. We let them out to graze afterwards and followed the flock all over the hill. It was lovely, and a sunny beautiful day. Once we got Randy home and ourselves showered up we went to the NY Pizzeria, where they gave us a free dinner to honor the two soldiers in our party. We had a great time, laughing and catching up. I had not seen AJ since our brief meeting at Mia's graduation. He is going back to LV to finish this semester then going on to Pasadena, CA., for a summer session of Fuller Seminary. Hector has done a tour of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan and will be going to law school after graduation from Rutgers. He is a self-confessed city boy, but enjoyed visiting the Farm. Walking into a sheep shearing is immediate immersion in one of the tougher, dirtier, sweatier aspects of farming. I love it, but it's not for everyone. As you can see in the picture, the men were a bit tentative about diving in, but they relaxed and dove in. AJ is really quick on his feet and caught a few lambs for me. It's a great relief to get those lambs wormed and vaccinated, and a bigger relief to get that hot wool off my sheep and into the bag! Lots of wool skirting and picking coming up for Maggie! Back to work to get some rest!
I'm glad you got to see your son AND have so much help! Yeay for Randy! Too bad the shearer was so negative about the sheep, but hey, he's in the shearing business. I wonder what he was thinking. He does know that lambs grow up, doesn't he?
ReplyDeleteNow you'll have plenty to do in your free time! Skirting and picking - what fun!
I think shearing school includes a bitching class. The guy who did mine gave me a lot of comments--mostly good natured--about long fleeced sheep not being his thing. But to be fair to your guy, BFLs are really a massive breed. There's no way I could throw them myself, or wrangle em. I hope they are docile-- my Leicester Longwool girls are feisty! and definitely a handful, though much smaller.
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