We sheared on February 3, almost exactly a year from shearing in 2017. This is such a fun day. Farm Club members are there to get their fleeces from the year, but they also do all the work!
Our fabulous shearer is John Sanchez. We started with the rams. This is Peyton, the new BFL. His fleece sold right away.
Next was the 2 year old lilac ram, Catalyst.
Here he is afterwards and…
…here is his fleece.
A staple of Catalyst’s fleece.
Catalyst’s son, Cayenne, after shearing. You can see what he looked like before shearing near the end of this post.
One of the shearing day jobs is weighing and recording fleeces. Kathleen and Lisa did that job.
We had two skirting tables set up this year. Farm Club members skirted their fleeces and helped others skirt and sort.
I set up the GoPro for some shearing video. That will be coming later.
Roy and Gina worked in the sheep pen.
So did Deborah and Shelby. They all made sure that John never ran out of sheep.
Kathleen, Lisa, and Dona. Dona is our “official” Farm Club photographer because I’m always too busy to take photos on our Farm Days. She took some of the photos here.
This is what a fleece looks like when you take the coat off the sheep.
Here is that same fleece after shearing.
Locks from Jolene’s fleece.
Another beautiful fleece on the table.
Doris made Jacob sheep cookies for us.
These sheep won’t be around long enough to need shearing.
Hot Lips.
Janis
Some of the sheep are coated. This is Honey.
Sylvia.
Stacy
Shelby and her daughter, Lavendar.
Almost 1-year old rams, Cayenne and…
…Serrano.
I not only found a plastic tub to keep the dust and cobwebs and rats away but I wrote the names on the tops of the bottles so that I don’t have to pull each of them out every time I’m looking for something. This is so simple, but it makes me inordinately pleased–why didn’t I think of it before? 
While I was cleaning inside the barn Dan was working outside. We had finally had some rain so felt more comfortable burning the brush pile.
By the way we burned this on Thursday. This doesn’t look like much but it was a pretty not fire. Even though it looked like it was out on Monday there were still hot spots and smoke.
That burn pile is right next to the ram pen. Here are the five of them. The 4-horned rams are Serrano and his dad, Buster. The lilac 2-horns are Cayenne and his sire, Catalyst. That’s Gotham in front. 
In the meantime, Dan is working on the west side of the barn. This has been a multi-year project but I think it may get finished this year.
Let’s put the GoPro on a sheep. Jade is the obvious choice, being the best pet sheep.
The first thing she did was run into the barn. When one sheep runs, they all do.
At that point I needed a scoop of grain to entice her. 
I had used the headgear that is meant for wearing the camera, but it was meant for a human head and didn’t wrap around the horns very well. I found the brace I use for my elbow and that seemed to secure it better.
I’ve looked at the footage. It’s not as exciting as we might hope for. Maybe if she wore the GoPro all day (and there was enough battery life to do that…and then we condense it all into a minute) it would be interesting. But it’s not like she’s going to be skydiving or snorkeling. For this trial run she pretty much just looked at the barn, the pasture, and me.
I will still do something with the video but it probably won’t be winning any film festivals.
This is Serrano and his dad, Buster.
One of these days, Serrano may come out the boss.
But not yet.
Buster is still boss.
This is Gotham sleeping on a foggy morning. When the rams lie with their heads propped up by their horns they do look dead.
It’s hard to imagine now with unseasonably low-70’s daytime highs for the last few days and predicted for the next week, but during most of January we had fog and drizzle. On he morning of our Farm Day this was what the brush pile looked like–a wool flower forest.
I don’t really like to see this because it means the sheep are rubbing on these branches.
We are shearing tomorrow. This is Cindy in full fleece. 
The lilac ram, Catalyst.
I love Shelby’s blue eyes.
We caught each sheep and inspected their fleeces. Farm Club members get first dibs on fleeces on Shearing Day and they can pre-select them on our Farm Day.
We also clean the ear tags so that they will be easy to read on Shearing Day. That’s Carole with the towel working on the tag.
Mary makes sure that fleece reservations are recorded on cards and that the ear tags match the ID on the card.
Another great day with Farm Club.
I noticed that white line in the fleece of Terri, a 2017 lamb. I don’t have an explanation for that.
I love the ability to write on the photos on my phone.
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