Summer 2002
Well, the big news for the summer is we are now in the sheep shearing business. This all started with a visit to a fellow we know who is a livestock dealer. We where looking for a Nubian buck at the time. He happened to have a whole bunch of sheep in the pens, including a couple of Jacob's sheep in full fleece. The subject of shearing came up and the final deal was we got to shear whoever we wanted and keep the fleeces.
Well, we got a few really nice fleeces out of it, some good shearing practice, and one horror story. Seems he went to buy a ram from a lady, only by the time he got there,the Ram was down with heat stroke. The owners could not find anyone to show up to shear a single sheep on short notice, and he was too heavy to move out of the middle of the field. The ram died out there.
Well we figured what the heck, we've been shearing the goats now for about six years, and sheep didn't seem to hard, so we told Tom (the dealer) to call us if anything like that came up again. We'd come out with the shears and a couple hundred feet of extension cord...
That was the fall of 2001, and come late spring we put up some notices at the local feed stores offering to shear small flocks. Well you could'nt have asked for better timing. One of the older established shearers had just dropped out due to back trouble, the young up and coming shearer was out with appendicitis, another old established shearer had just broken up with his shearing partner/wife, well you get the idea. It was now late may/early june and there where folks in 40 mile radius who where desperately looking for a shearer.
So, here are a couple of stories from our first few gigs:
One of our first gigs turned out to be a trio of Merino's....nice
wrinkly skin that just begs to be nicked by the shears. These had
apparently spent the previous month very happily rolling in burrs!!!
Argh! It was the most beautilfully soft fiber (for the
couple inches) with an inch of armor plating covering it. Sadly,
almost all of it had to go to compost.....
Wednesday we had an encounter with small flock of "Tunisian
Fighting" sheep. At least that's what we called them.....My
wife still has a bruise & limp from one flying jump kick...The
owner (the wife) was at work, and the husband vanished after they
had been rounded up into the barn. We would get one dumped on
it's butt, only to have it execute a perfect double-reverse-backwards-squirm
and be halfway across the barn. About the time I was ready to go
home for the shotgun I spotted an old shearing stand being used
as a feed bag storage device. We dragged it over & got the
first Sheep in place & got her sheared in no time. Best guess
is that they had always been stand sheared & just would not
put up with any of this new fangled nonsense we where trying.
Friday it was a Galloping Sheep.....The owner didn't know the
breed (bought at auction)....it had a clean face and legs, with
about a 9" staple fleece on it. It got up to about 45 mph on
the straightaways and cleared a three foot high rock at one point....then
it went through the fence....once we caught it behind the wood
pile it was happy enough to be sheared...but catching it!
Ah well, I'm getting caught up again wth the web updates, which is good news. More when I can get to it!
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