Born to be Shorn

A bit about the shearing that got underway on Monday. In three days of shearing the crew has shorn around 3000 ewes. There are 5 guys doing the shearing. 4 girls and 1 guy work as "roustabouts" picking up the fleeces and doing the "skirting" pulling off the uneven pieces around the edges of the fleece. And 1 guy doing all the pressing with the wool press. The bales of wool that you see stacked up each have right about 400lbs of the finest wool in the world inside. In the third photo you see Bob (Phillips Father) who does all the "classing" or grading of the fleeces. He's the big guy in the grey sweater. Just by touch and years of experience he decides what grade each fleece is. He personally touches every single fleece. So there are 11 people in the shearing gang. Plus Bob doing the classing. And two of us are always around keeping sheep in the shed and taking them away. Needless to say lots going on around the wool shed. I haven't actually shorn one yet but I'm definitely going to learn. With around 7000 more to shear there is still plenty of opportunity!
We had a big cold front come in yesterday and it brought with it about
2-3 inches of really wet snow. Seeing how you can't shear a wet sheep we're on hold till the sheep dry off and the weather clears. Hoping to get going again on Saturday.

For those interested Google "Icebreaker Clothing" a first class maker of top quality wool garments. That is where the wool from here goes. If you're on their website you can read about Lake Heron listed as one of their producers.