We’re fortunate to have good neighbors such as Jim who lives down on the Jefferson side of Muschopauge Road. Jim, has apparently taken pity on my lack of electronic and mechanical aptitude and provides maintenance and repair services for a small fee and my eternal gratitude. He came to my rescue again yesterday when I was starting to shear our sheep and the clippers suddenly stopped working.
I was on the third sheep when trouble set in. If you’ve ever had a haircut and felt like the barber was ripping out your hair one chunk at a time that is probably how that sheep felt, although the sheep didn’t really seem to complain. I switched to different types of blades for the electric shears twice and things were going a little better when they suddenly stopped working. Deciding I might have blown a fuse I plugged it into a different outlet and there was an immediate flash of light, the smell of something burning and a scary noise. I set it down and texted Jim who came right over and remarkably brought it back in perfect working condition this morning.
The typical Australian sheep shearer will shear 100 to 200 sheep in a normal day’s work. I did eight this afternoon and was glad to be done. Shearing sheep is a good skill to know but isn’t a career path I should follow. I’ve sheared between a dozen and 40 sheep each year for the past 25 years or so and have the basic hang of it. There is a chart of the standard series of positions and strokes (also called “blows” in shearing lingo) that is used almost universally in “harvesting” wool. I spent most of the first five of those 25 years having a copy of the shearing chart right next to me so I’d know what position to change my handhold and feet to and what part of the sheep to shear next. The positions are all about the use of leverage, like a wrestler, as the shearer starts beside the sheep with one hand on the animals head and one on the hip and rolls the sheep on its rump. He/she starts cutting the wool on its belly, letting gravity move wool out of the way once it’s cut, then a little on the leg followed by a pivot by the shearer (as well as the sheep) and if everything goes right by the time you’re through all the positions and strokes the sheep and wool are separated into a skinny unrecognizable looking animal and about a 5 to 8 pound wool “blanket”.
The positions and blows are now ingrained as muscle memory and although I can’t write the proper order of things if you just hand me a sheep I can demonstrate them from start to finish. In fact, if a sheep manages to scramble and stand back up during shearing I usually need to start from the beginning and go through the various positions until I come to where I left off.
The sheep are amazingly docile most of the time. There are little tricks in making this so, for example, if it’s even slightly out of position and a sheep is able to get the bottom of its hooves just touching the ground it will often try to twist and struggle trying to stand up. Also, instead of holding the leg firm (where the animal will fight it) if you put pressure on just the right part of the associated joint, such as the hip, the animal will stretch out that leg or body part and provide little resistance. Easy to shear. If you pull on a clump of wool to hold it further away from the animal’s body the skin will stretch with it and you’re likely to cut the animal. The shears are sharp and a few nicks are bound to happen from time to time but you just dab a little iodine on them and carry on. Oh, and sometimes you nick the sheep as well.
It often costs more to shear the sheep than what the wool is worth. There are some high quality fleeces of varying colors that handspinners will pay good money for, but the market is limited and the farmers specializing in that kind of wool production go as far as keeping coats on their sheep to protect the wool and keep it clean. I sometimes will take my time shearing sheep that has a particular high quality fleece to share with handspinning friends. This is to prevent what is called “second cuts” which is when there is an overlap with the shears. The small tufts of unattached wool hurt the handspinning quality. I put the low quality wool, (belly wool, and wool that has lots of vegetation or dirt trapped in it) in the compost pile and store the rest in the corner of a bart attic thinking some day I’ll send it to a processor and make it into some cool yarn or blankets or something.
There are some quality breeds of sheep that have hair instead of wool, but this is New England and I like to think I’m keeping some of our heritage alive by raising wool sheep. They are a big player in our history. The textile industry got its start here with wool as part of the industrial revolution of the latter half of the 18th century and much of the New England forest land was cleared to provide pasture for the millions of sheep that supplied the woolen factories duirng this time. Some of these mills and factories have been preserved or repurposed, but many no longer exist. One thing that still remains, in various conditions, from those early farming days is the stone walls, used to keep the sheep and other livestock in their pastures and out of the field crops (plus you had to put those rocks somewhere…). It is estimated there are enough stone walls in New England that if they were put together as one it would circle the globe four times.
Wool sheep, old factories, stone walls, and helping sometimes imcompetent neighbors- all a part of our New England heritage.
First photo: Part of the recently sheared flock. Some of you know the name of the first one: Constellation
Second photo: One of the shearing positions; the sheep is on its rump with its head is between my knees. The arched spine minimizes wrinkles in the skin to prevent nicks; and gravity drops the already sheared fleece out of the way. My shears would normally be in my left hand (all the great athletes are left-handed!) to make the next stroke, but I had to set them down to take the photo…
Third photo: A newly sheared ewe standing by her fleece.
