SHEARING DAY IN THE BLUFF COUNTRY

Apparently, my husband did manage to get one picture before my camera batteries died on Saturday. This was me, on Saturday morning, picking VM (vegetable matter) out of Diva's fleece. They always get chafe, from the hay, in the wool on the back of their necks. It must itch because the girls actually seemed to enjoy me picking it out! I was happy with how each of my ladies would come up for me to pick out her fleece. A couple of minutes after this picture was taken, I had girls laying down on each side of me and the rest "standing in line", waiting their turn! ;-)
Unfortunately, my camera batteries died before shearing got under way, so I don't have any "during" shots. But I was glad to see that my girls forgave me for subjecting them to such an ordeal. Here they are ~ naked as jay-birds ~ Sunday afternoon when I went out to finally get some photos. Aren't they CUTE?! I think they look like fat, little deer. Someone else said 'goats' but I prefer to think of them as cute, little deer... I owe a big THANK YOU to Angie Little and Virginia Cooper, for pitching in to help out with shearing. My dear friends know how stressed out I get for shearing day, and were there to keep me from freaking out. (I hate seeing my poor, pregnant girls manhandled!) ;-) Angie even brought a wonderful hot-dish (that her HUSBAND made!) that we feasted on when the work was over. MOST excellent!
In the interest of sexual equality, here are the naked boys. My wonderful husband had the job of catching each of them when it was their turn to be sheared. He did a remarkable job (without help!) until we needed Skittles. Skit had watched each of the other boys walk up to Don and get caught and drug off to the garage, and he was not having ANY of it! After we chased him around for a while, I finally got the brainstorm of just leaving the garage door open. Sure enough, with all the other sheep still in the garage, it was only a minute before Skittles walked right in, on his own! Silly shepherds ;-)
here's a picture of Skittles "AFTER"
And here's my beautiful ALICE (the 5th annual "Alice Watch" will officially begin on April 1st)...
And per special request, here's Bravo:
If you have a particular sheep that you'd like to see a before and/or after picture of, just let me know and I'll post it for you!

Later this week, I'll show some of the beautiful fleeces that my beauties gave me...