spring shearing Ba-aAA!!

First step in shearing is to bring sheep close to the sheering area, keeping them comfortable and content and safe. We used the portable electric fence to move them from the pasture to the area behind our back patio, where the shearing professionals whom we hired can use outlets for their electric clippers and hold each sheep safely from flock while shearing the wool.

who is that grown man in my back yard?! (it's my little boy home from college on spring break. :o ) 

Little Dido wasn't sure what to make of all the commotion. But she loves belly rubs enough to not ask many questions.

I leave the 140 pound lamb wrestling to the experts.

The wee lambs will wait until June to have their wool sheared. They don't have enough skin protecting lanolin under yet, nor is their skin thick enough to protect them from the sun if they lose their wool. Besides, we'll have more, thicker wool if we wait a bit.

Cici was not sheared when she was a lamb, so she had an extra heavy coat from this, her first time. She quickly surrendered to the experience.

Even the ram was compliant. 

before and after

The wool of each sheep is kept separately wrapped in sheets until Harmony can get to it to clean, card, and make ready for felting or yarn making. 

With the removal of the wool, is also the removing of the lanolin the sheep makes to keep her wool water resilient. This lanolin is a rich emollient; I would love to extract it from the wool for hand cream and other skin products. Cici's wool is especially rich in lanolin, so perhaps I can preserve some of it when the wool is washed. 

The scent of the lanolin varies from sheep to sheep. It's not a difference we humans can detect, but each lamb knows his or her mama from not only the sound of her call, but by her distinct smell of her lanolin-- the distinct smell we just had sheared off!! 

It was sadly amusing to see each lamb call for her mother, the mother respond, and watch as the poor lambs slowly found his mother by calling out, listening, calling again, roaming, and then quickly running to the sheep who responded with the right distinct "ba--aa" to which he was most familiar.

Dido was a different story. It was sadder, which- and I'm almost embarrassed to say- made it even more amusing. She wondered aimlessly crying out with a questioning "ba-a?" To which her mother looked up and responded, "Ba-aa-aa." Again, Dido asked to the open field before her, "ba-a?" To which, again, with more gusto, her mother responded, "Ba-aa-A!".
Poor Dido tried again, looking around, "ba-a??" Cici stepped forward, and almost militantly resounded, "BA-A-AA!!" And poor Dido asked one more time, "ba-a?" By this time Cici the young mother simply mumbled, "ba-a-a-a-a" while biting and chewing and swallowing the green grass before her. Eventually, Dido heard her mother's distinct grumbling. Or perhaps, by default she simply chose the sheep mama without a baby. Either way, mother and daughter were soon reunited and Dido was able to wash down her grassy meal with her own mother's milk.