Nap Time

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Shearing Day Revisited

Shearing Day here was way back in early February. I wrote a post about shearing the rams, but never got to the rest of it. As I went through my photos I realized that a lot of them are of people, not sheep. But that is what makes Shearing Day here so fun--my fabulous Farm Club. The Fiber members chose their fleeces this day, but other members were here too. Everyone has a job and it makes the day go so smoothly.

The star of the show is our shearer, John.

John's shearing shoes.

Stephany and Gynna...

...and Brenda were sheep wranglers, never letting John run out of sheep.

Deborah and Lorrian  pushed sheep to the shearing pen.

Kathleen weighed fleeces.

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Amy worked the gate in where the sheep left after being shorn.

Mike swept.

With all these other people working...

...I could just lounge.

Here is Hallie after shearing...

...and this is the beautiful result.

Trista: "Does this shearing job make my head look big?"

Speaking of heads several of us wore our Baa-ble hats.

Some people left before we took these last photos, but there was still quite a crew for this photo.

Sheep on the Road

This is a blog post that I meant to write a few months ago following our summer Road Trip to Colorado. While traveling I took photos of sheep I saw along the way. I forgot about this until I was going through photos tonight for another project.

This was a band of sheep on the way to Bodie, a ghost town in Mono County, California. There are more photos of them in the post that is linked above.

So not all hardly any of the sheep I saw were alive. That doesn't mean they weren't impressive however.

A bighorn ram outside the visitor center at Arches National Park.

Another ram inside the gift store.

Petroglyphs seen on one of our hikes in the park...

...and  a license plate in the parking lot (not a sheep, but I thought a mountain goat was cool anyway).

After hiking all day in the park we stopped at the visitor center to fill up our water jugs and spent a little time with this ewe and lamb.

Maybe it is a stretch but this is a photo of Sheep Mountain on the way to Leadville, Colorado.

One of the old buildings in Leadville. OK, so it's not sheep, but it's fiber related, right?

Also on a street in Leadville.

In the restaurant where we had lunch (another mountain goat)...

...and in one of the old hotels on the main street.

I'd sure love to have brought home this ram...

...but that price tag on his leg says $2900 (marked down from $4770).

This print was on the wall of our motel room in Leadville.

Somewhere on the road after leaving Leadville.

On the way home we saw sheep and some other fiber animals in a few places but I was always too late with the camera. I barely caught these yaks. With the exception of the first day, this was not a sheep-watching trip (at least not live sheep). The last sheep photo I got was one that Dan pointed out to me:

An anticlimactic photo of sheep on the road.

Shearing at Other Farms

A few weeks ago two of my friends did their fall shearing. Since I didn't have to do any work I just visited and took photos.

I don't know which is which but this is one of Jackie's Herdwick sheep, either Heddy or Hazel.

I do know this ewe because she lived here for many years. This is Diamond who is now almost 17 years old.

Lucy is Diamond's granddaughter. She is almost 10. 

Camelids are not my favorite animals but they can be photogenic. Jackie's llama is named Peridot...

...and her alpaca is Evangeline.

Jackie's flock after shearing. Jackie shears twice a year because many of her sheep are long-wools and benefit from twice/year shearing. The Jacob sheep will be shorn in the spring.

The next shearing location was Colleen's place. 

This is Colleen's older ram, Razor,...

...and her younger ram, Thor.

When doing anything with the rams at Colleen's farm you have to deal with the Goose. (Thanks, Dona for this photo.) The Goose is bonded with and protective of Razor (as if he needs protecting) but has a sincere dislike of Thor. Thor usually has to live separately to keep the goose from continually harassing him.

Razor is about as big as John, the shearer, and probably weighs more.

Velvet, the cat, enjoying the sun and the smell of lanolin.

Colleen raises Romeldale and CVM sheep that have very fine wool...

...and the unique "badger" face pattern.

After shearing we enjoyed surprise birthday cupcakes (mine--yes, I chose to spend my birthday watching sheep shearing) at Colleen's outdoor table. Velvet joined us.