We sheared on February 3, almost exactly a year from shearing in 2017. This is such a fun day. Farm Club members are there to get their fleeces from the year, but they also do all the work! Shearing-GB-198-3 Our fabulous shearer is John Sanchez. We started with the rams. This is Peyton, the new BFL. His fleece sold right away. 15078 Catalyst-4 Next was the 2 year old lilac ram, Catalyst. Here he is afterwards and... Catalyst fleece-1 ...here is his fleece. Catalyst fleece-2 A staple of Catalyst's fleece. Catalyst's son, Cayenne, after shearing. You can see what he looked like before shearing near the end of this post.

Shearing-DS-198-5 One of the shearing day jobs is weighing and recording fleeces. Kathleen and Lisa did that job.

Shearing-DS-198-4 We had two skirting tables set up this year. Farm Club members skirted their fleeces and helped others skirt and sort.

Shearing-DS-198-2 I set up the GoPro for some shearing video. That will be coming later. Roy and Gina worked in the sheep pen. So did Deborah and Shelby. They all made sure that John never ran out of sheep. Kathleen, Lisa, and Dona. Dona is our "official" Farm Club photographer because I'm always too busy to take photos on our Farm Days. She took some of the photos here. 17054-Jolene-Fleece-1 This is what a fleece looks like when you take the coat off the sheep.

Here is that same fleece after shearing. Locks from Jolene's fleece. 17050-Jillian-fleece Another beautiful fleece on the table. Doris made Jacob sheep cookies for us.

These sheep won't be around long enough to need shearing.

In my last post I talked about the project of fixing up my office and all the prep involved. The prep isn't usually the most fun part of a project, but is necessary. My prep for shearing has been spent mostly doing major clean-up in the barn, but a few weeks ago Farm Club came for part of the prep. It's hard to imagine now with unseasonably low-70's daytime highs for the last few days and predicted for the next week, but during most of January we had fog and drizzle. On he morning of our Farm Day this was what the brush pile looked like--a wool flower forest.

I don't really like to see this because it means the sheep are rubbing on these branches. 16062 Cindy-2 We are shearing tomorrow. This is Cindy in full fleece. 15078 Catalyst The lilac ram, Catalyst. 15567 Shelby I love Shelby's blue eyes. We caught each sheep and inspected their fleeces. Farm Club members get first dibs on fleeces on Shearing Day and they can pre-select them on our Farm Day.

We also clean the ear tags so that they will be easy to read on Shearing Day. That's Carole with the towel working on the tag.

Mary makes sure that fleece reservations are recorded on cards and that the ear tags match the ID on the card. Another great day with Farm Club. I noticed that white line in the fleece of Terri, a 2017 lamb. I don't have an explanation for that.