Fleeces

This past week, we had the wonderful opportunity to shear two gorgeous fleeces off the backs of two unfortunate sheep. The sheep belonged to some friends of ours and they gave us the fleece for the shearing. Sadly, our sheep have not produced fleece half that long this year, due to an unfortunate encounter with a baby cow sharing their pen.  She quite literally licked their fleeces off!

We didn't get any pictures of the shearing, but here's one of us skirting the fleeces.


They are now being processed (washed, carded, spun...). Ordinarily, we would just wash the fleeces and stick them in storage until the winter months are upon us, but we wanted Jules to experience the process, hands on, while she's here.


Even though it looks like two dead animals in our living room, () the sheep lived. Actually, they fared better then some of ours, since their fleeces were different colors than their skin. (Our black ones are tough to shear, since they have black skin too.) I had the back legs to hold and I also trimmed their toes while I had them down (clipped my own finger pretty good too).

Well, I'm nicely sore after today's work, with just enough energy to go join that wild looking volley ball game going on outside, and just enough weariness to put me out when I hit the hay tonight. Looking forward to another long, hard work day tomorrow!