Shearing Day was yesterday. I have far too many photos for one blog post. Starting with the beginning, the night before.

Lots of barn cleaning and organizing. One of the last things to set up is the shearing corner. This board has been in use for many years, labeled so that it never is cut up to use for something else.

The evening before shearing Dan and I went to Trish’s farm, a few miles away, to pick up her 24 Jacob sheep. With sheep in full fleece it took two trailer loads. After shearing they all fit in the trailer with room to spare. These are Trish’s three rams.

I put 10 or 11 ewes in each of two stalls for the night.

I recognize this ewe’s hairdo from when she was here last year.

John began with Trish’s rams.

As John was shearing the three rams we moved the ewes from a stall to the shearing corner. The shearer doesn’t want to stop once he starts, so we do our best to always have the next sheep ready.

I woke up early on Shearing Day so I could finish the prep for the day. One of the jobs was to get all of our rams into the shearing area before people got here. While John was shearing Trish’s sheep I worked on the rams, vaccinated and trimming hooves on all. That way I didn’t have to think about catching them later to deal with that.

After Trish’s sheep were loaded back into the trailer John started on our six rams and the wether.

In the meantime Farm club members started gathering our ewes. This photo shows what a fabulous day it was, after so many days of thick fog. We were really lucky, because that drippy wet fog was back today.

I am fortunate that I have such a willing and capable team of people.

Sheep are in the lambing area and this will be the next group to move in.

Thanks to Roy Clemes for sharing some of the photos I used here.