Shearing at the Timm Ranch

Last weekend I spent a day skirting fleeces with some of the Farm club members. We were at the Timm Ranch not far from here.             After a rainy and overcast week the sunny day was a welcome change and the ranch was a beautiful place to spend the day.

              The sheep were in pens when we got there.               We helped to move them toward the lane into the barn.              Most of the lambs were born much earlier but there were a few late lambs too.

The sheep are a ranch blend that were originally bred from Targhee, Polypay, and Rambouillet sheep             The shearer works in the old barn where there are signs of what shearing would have been like in the "old days" when there would have been hundreds of sheep to shear in the day.

                                                              We brought each fleece to the skirting tables...            ...and inspected them for strength, length, and VM (vegetable matter)

My goal was to get at least 200 pounds, the minimum weight to send it to the mill I am using for this wool.

                  I ended up with 270 pounds of beautiful fleece.

               We dragged it on a tarp over to the baler...                    ...where the shearer baled it.                                         This is our 270 pound bale in the truck. I am grateful to Farm Club members for helping out on this day. It not only made the work easier, but it was fun to spend time together.

A link to last year's Timm Ranch yarn is here.

Shearing Day

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!                                                   Our fabulous shearer is John Sanchez. We started with the rams. This is Peyton, the new BFL. His fleece sold right away.                 Next was the 2 year old lilac ram, Catalyst.                   Here he is afterwards and...                ...here is his fleece.                   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.

                    One of the shearing day jobs is weighing and recording fleeces. Kathleen and Lisa did that job.

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

                                                                   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.                  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.                Another beautiful fleece on the table.                 Doris made Jacob sheep cookies for us.

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