Shear Madness

Well I did it.

I sheard (shorned?, shearded?) my sheep! It was quite the experience I must say. If you asked me that night, I would have told you how frustrating it was, and that it took me forever (fur-ever wouldnt even be funny here but I thought about it), my equipment broke and I was sore and exhausted... but now that it has been a couple days and I have sorted through the fleeces and the sheep are all out grazing and walking around enjoying life a few pounds lighter... you know what... it went pretty dawg gone well for my first time.

And now I have some amazing fleeces to sell. I have learned more about wool than I ever knew was even possible. Did you know that there are characteristics like how many microns thick the fiber is or how it shines in light, how sometimes signs of stress or dietary changes can show up on a wool fiber, how the waves that run the length of the fiber (or crimp) is important, all of these things are used to measure the value of a sheeps' fleece.
These particular fleeces are considered to be fine, making them great for handspinners and for making soft clothes that are for the body (as opposed to heavy fibers for rugs or potholders for example). The picture to the right shows you an up close view of one of the fleeces. If you look closely, you can see the crimp and how tight and even it is. This is a good thing and something people would want when choosing a fleece for either handspinning or turning into a high quality yarn.

Shearing really is backbreaking. Being 6'4" and touching your toes while contorting an animal that needless to say doesnt want to be there, all while hoping your shears are making nice cuts through 5 inches of wool is quite the task. Its a skill; and according to statistics its a dying skill at that. There are rising numbers of sheep flocks in the US and yet fewer sheep shearers than ever before in US History. I'm learning for the benefit of sheaing my own, but I won't be surprised if I am able to turn this into some small weekend jobs. It's that hard to find a shearer in Michigan.

After shearing the sheep you need to collect the fleece and skirt it. This is where you seperate any manure tags, bleached fibers or vegetable matter from the good high quality wool. Windyknob sheep are jacketed, which helps to keep their wool clean and true colored. To the left you see Nez Perce's fleece and can see the amazing cream color of Corriedale Wool. The bottom right corner you might notice a little darker area which is part of the wool that was sticking outside of the jacket. This is an example of wool that gets picked off and used in a variety of other ways besides hand spinning.

Once in a while here in October, the sun shined brightly and made for beautiful Autumn days; but I have to tell you, its been alot of cold and rainy days thus far. I've got my hands full managing the sheep, the farm and school and I even have my Beautiful Sister's Wedding this weekend. But soon enough, things will slow down. The days are now getting shorter and each night gets just a little cooler; but I know fall has hit due to the fact that its time to now set up the breeding pairs which will occur later this weekend. You'd never know it though looking at Meri Jo, who took in the final rays of sunshine after having been freshly shorn this past Saturday.