Shearing Day!

Giovanna getting her hoof trimmed

We got our shearing team to come shear our sheep on Sunday.  This mother daughter shearing team is amazing.  They got all 45 of our adult sheep sheared and hooves trimmed in just under 6 hours!  There was one small sheep escape that required some quick thinking and running.  Luckily we have gotten pretty good at acting like sheep dogs and got them back in the small penned area without losing too much time.

Our sheep are currently housed at three separate locations in town, all near each other.  We started the day at our house with our small group of new moms and lambs, moved on to the bachelor pad where we keep our males, and then to our ladies over at another field.  

The wool was skirted and bagged for later processing with the help of some great friends.

Our black fleeces

I was so filthy by the end of the day covered in a mix of wool, lanolin, dirt, and sweat - yum!   But we all got the shepherd's special hand treatment from touching all that lanolin and my hands have never been so soft.  Once the dirt washed off of course - you couldn't have gotten better from a fancy spa.  Days later, my hands are still buttery soft.   I might just keep one fleece in a box to stick my hands in instead of using hand lotion.  That or next winter, I really need to remember to take my gloves off and really get my hands in the sheep's wool each day during feeding time.  
After the long day shearing, we laid out all the wool our on a tarp in the yard to get all the way dry before going into storage bags until we can send it off for processing.  We are thinking of having it made into blankets this year.

Fleeces laid to dry