shearing day, in pictures

Yesterday, Andy the sheep shearer came over from Vermont in his cherry red Chevy and made the rounds on the island. I took a break from planting cosmos for a while to watch, take pictures, and act in the very important role of barn-door-opener. Here are some scenes from the day. If you make it to the end, you get to see some hilarious and unfair naked sheep pictures.

Andy would start on the sheep’s belly, move on to the back legs, and then move along up either flank, periodically rotating the ewe on his plywood work surface. He held them in particular ways, controlling their shoulders, and in all but the most feisty girls it had the effect of making them oddly docile, and they slumped like rag dolls as the clippers buzzed over their bodies.

The clippers were incredibly sharp, and Andy used one hand to smooth and tighten the skin he skimmed over, to get a close clean cut. A few of the ewes got little nicks here and there, especially around their joints, but nothing that wouldn’t clot up quick on its own.

The white sheep were sheared first, then brown, then black, and all the fleeces were piled unceremoniously in the driveway. For reasons that weren’t entirely clear to me, the spring shearing gets tossed. I think some people are going to take it to use as mulch in the garden.

Although it must feel a lot better to be rid of all that heavy fiber, the sheep now look HILARIOUS. Seriously extremely funny. The poor things. This Shetland in particular, who is very small to begin with, looks rather like a bobble head doll.

The shearing also revealed interesting color patterns on some of the Icelandics, which had previously been obscured and blended by their fleece. The skins beneath are covered with quirky blotches and spots. In what was so recently very much a flock, it’s now very easy to single out one ewe from another.

This morning they all loaded back onto the truck and rattled across the road to pasture. I enjoyed being able to peek in at them in the barn, but it’s probably just as well that they get to go eat some nice grass and regrow their fleece without me watching and laughing at their expense.