More Nekkid

Sheep, that is.  Yesterday was Round Two of shearing and we managed 44 without mishap to anyone.

It started out pretty cold after a night of freezing fog.  This frosty weed was pretty in its own way but I much prefer the crocus from last week.  :-/

We had the doors closed in the barn at first but it did warm up and before we were finished we had rolled them open and I was working without a coat.

First up, Cocoa Puff.

She's faded a lot in one year.  Methinks I have to take a whole slew of new pictures of fleece locks to bring them all up to current status on the sale page.

The crowd waiting to be shorn watched the activity with a mixture of suspicion (the youngsters) and acceptance (the older sheep).

Left to right: Snickers, Gem, Kenya and Tiffany.  Don't they look like the stars of one of those TV dramas like Law and Order where the main characters walk down a hallway together to soaring theme music?

Daisy has a huge fleece and beneath all those crimpy locks she has a very cool pattern of stubble.

Kind of like a highly figured oak board.

"Really?  You're comparing my amazing fiber producing self to a chunk of wood?  We are not amused."

OK, it's more like the pretty wind ripples formed on fine grained sand dunes.

"All right, that's a little better."

Large Marge is turning slightly gray underneath.  There's that need for new fleece pictures again........

And some of the moorits have faded to such a pale shade that it's hard to tell at first glance that they aren't white. This will be a pretty cinnamon sugar color.

Once we got into a rhythm the waiting crowd settled down and Coconut, who's friendly anyway, got curious.

"I think I remember this from last year."

And of course, bored kids have to play with things so the broom got tested tasted for potential. 

 "This thing's kinda chewy.  Tasteless, though." 

 "I don't think you're supposed to be doing that."

 "Nobody said I couldn't.  It's kinda fun.... since there's nothing else to do."

"I'll just give these loose pieces a good pull to even them up."

And then she managed to bonk herself on the head with the handle which resulted in a bit of a panic for a moment.

Old Gem, our only sheep with horns, has a curious color change going on with her left horn.  The horn grows right at the juncture of a black and white area on her head and the horn has grown in line with those colors - one side of the horn is white and one side is black.  Now I see the white side has changed at some point in the not too distant past and is growing black!  She hasn't taken any injury to her horn that I know of so the reason is mysterious. 

At last we found the ewe we were looking for - Ginger - the last one of the day.  ;-)

Whew, that's 83 fleeces so far and two more shearing dates to go.  Better get the camera batteries charged up.