Shear ye! Shear ye!

 Yes friends, its that time of year. Infact, its a little late to be doing this. Finally setting out to shear the sheep. This was the first time I ever did it and it was fun. I tried both electric shears and hand shears and found I prefered the hand shears.

 I watched lots of videos on youtube that made it look easy...but it wasn't so much. Not terrible, but i certainly was not as fast. But there ya go: Sparkles whole fleece all cut off by me with the help of my family in holding her down. I finally got into the rhythm and up to speed the last part of the fleece.

 Then there was John. Most sheep pass out when sat on their butts...him? not so much. Like Wilda, hes not inclined to be docile. It took Shawn a few minutes of wrestling to even get the sheep on the ground finally resorting to out and out tackling and rolling him over.

This time is was my sisters chance to cut. Gratious me, did I have a hard time not intervening.....she was very careful not to cut them and went slow. really. slow. painfully slow. all the while John was gathering up his strength for the next escape attempt. He needed more speed in his shearing.

 Part of the time he was in a leglock between Shawns legs, and other times 3 of us held him down while someone sheared. Once or twice I had to throw my body over him to hold him down. His horns made it difficult to tuck his head in close enough for him to go in his sheepy trance.

 Not the most perfect fleece as he tried to escape and tore it, buts its mostly in one piece.

That there is the naked sheep. Compare to the picture above with his fleece. He is a mighty skinny boy now.