What fantastic weather we are having these early summer days. Jan is going home today, boo-hoo! - to get ready to travel to Illinois to help out an aging auntie in distress. I'm sorry to see her go, but I have so much to keep me busy and I have such lovely memories of our weekend together. So nice to have someone to drink coffee with in our jammies, and do some serious gossip about people we used to work with. Low and behold, I went outside to let the sheep out of the pen and there were three goaties in distress. One kid had her head through the wire, then back again, causing some serious neck twising. It didn't keep her from screaming her head off. Jan held her head still while I ran for the wire cutters. Red Tag # 4, AKA "Ruby" had her head through the wire, too. She's done it so many times she knows to wait until I come and guide her horns back through. It's the horns that keep her from disentangling herself. Finally, a fuzzy black goat kid who we missed while shearing last week had her bottom teeth caught in the mohair on her neck. It prevented her from eating and drinking, and can rip her teeth out if she were to pull hard. Jan and I chased her down and we got the mohair cut, along with some neck hair so it wouldn't happen again. She needs to be shorn pronto. A long coat of mohair can be deadly this time of year. It can get caught in the brush or on a piece of old barbed wire way up on the hill. The goats wouldn't be able to follow the flock back to the barn. I might never know the goat is up there until I count heads and go looking. Unfortunately, my dogs are not smart enough to give me the head's up, or stay with the goat until help comes. Jim Baldwin will come back and do the rest of the goat shearing as soon as he can. He's a big, good-natured fellow who is a lot of fun to work with and doesn't mind doing goats. I have some real tangled up goats due to the trouble I have had getting shearers who are willing to do goats. Jim is terrific and is willing to do goats. He says, "There are no challenges, only opportunities!" What a great attitude!
What a great attitude to find in a shearer! Good shearers are hard to come by. I think that because they know there are few of them, they can be as rude or as nasty-tempered as they want to be and no one will say anything because there's almost no one else to do the job. Last year, things got so bad that my sister bought her own shearing equipment and we did all the goats ourselves. This year, she sheared all the goats and all the alpacas, and then hore out to go shear someone else's animals, too. She's not rude or nasty or picky about the animals she shears, as long as there is someone around to help manage the animals. Maybe you could teach Randy how to shear and he could help you next time?
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