Shearing on a cold day

This is a picture of Alfie, who was born last Tuesday. He looks a lot like his dad, who is a a gray pure bred border leister.

Yesterday we had Jeff come to shear 25 of our sheep, (two were already shorn). He arrived about an hour before we expected him having traveled from New Hampshire. He was very fast with the shearing, which is good when sheep are full and round with lambs.

Several of our fiber community came to help. We had 4 helpers in the barn. Two to catch the sheep, one to record who was done, condition, and help gather up each fleece into a sheet and carry it to the fiber building.

The first sheep shorn was Ruthie, which was washed right away, and this morning is dry already. She will be going with Sally and Sadie to be processed right away as we are low on white yarn at the moment.

In the fiber building we laid the fleeces out on skirting table to skirt away the edges and remove as much of the vegitation as possible, weigh the fleeces, and put each one into a bag marked with the name and weight of the fleece.

Anne, our fiber expert, was teaching inexperienced helpers about skirting the wool. This what I heard her say: "Think of the fleece as a jacket on the sheep with a zipper along the length of the belly from the neck to the hind end. The shearer unzips the jacket and peels the fleece off all in one piece. When you lay it out, you put the cut side down on the skirting table, which is a frame with turkey wire on it. You can identify the neck, which tends to be full of hay and vegitation, the rump, which may have britch, a coarser fiber and manure, and the legs. You then remove the edges with manure tags and most of the vegitation." When the fleece is fairly clean you roll the fleece inside out, folding the sides in first and rolling head to tail. Then the fleece is weighed and put in a paper bag to be washed and carded another day.

The shearer was done by 1pm, we had a pot luck lunch, and some kept skirting, some knitted or spun. We had a lot of fun, good food, and sold one raw fleece to a handspinner. Then Mary Ann announced that Sassy was having her lamb. She has a ewe lamb and we named her Abby. A big girl she weighed in at around 13 pounds. She is black with a tuft of white on the top of her head and the tip of her tail. Mother and baby are doing well.

This morning I estimated that we have over 150 pounds of wool in all. About 60 pounds of it is skirted and in bags. The rest is in sheets or laid out on a screen to dry. Thanks to all who helped with a very productive day.