It's that time of year again, a bit late, in fact, due to the wet and cool weather this year, for shearing our sheep. I hasten to add, for the benefit of those new to the blog that the header photo isn't of our flock, which consists of only three sheep, Toto, the ram, Segoline the oldest ewe and her daughter, Rosie. As Sego is the most tricky to shear we started with her yesterday, finished cutting off her fleece by the evening and returned to her this morning to wash her down and snip off forgotten tufts. We also dealt with a wound to her ear which she seems to have cut on the fence somehow and clipped her over- long claws. The next will be for tomorrow, when we have the energy.
Shearing is hard work, although we have been given an old set of electric shears for sheep by a retired shepherd. A real shearer can do a sheep in a few minutes but I confess it takes us hours! The professional flips the sheep onto its backside and leans over it to shear but we don't have the knack and carry out the job with the sheep standing with the spare personnel holding her by the collar, an item not often seen in wilder sheep! Kim finishes off the awkward spots with her dressmaking scissors....
Well, Sego is now short-haired, clean and smelling strongly of Dettol, so we are drinking a well-earned cuppa and looking forward without much enthusiasm to the other two. Organic mowing doesn't seem so labour-saving at this time of year!
Bye for now, going to massage each others' aching backs!
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