It is a mystery

saturday was the weavers guild picnic, which was held in the barn of a member and was an absolutely lovely time. It was really a chance to talk to people instead of trying to awkwardly have a conversation in ten minute breaks. I definitely ate something I shouldn't have but also mostly ate fruit. Threr was also people there who don't normally make the meetings, so it was nice to meet them. I brought my knitting and multiple people expressed how they wished they'd brought theirs.

I brought brownies that weren't quite baked, we need to check our oven temps. Lots of people ooh'd and aah'd over the mohair fabric I brought and several people were appalled that I was going to cut it for clothes. it's not usable as anything else really.

After, I ran north and sheared a pet sheep for someone. I brought my shearing gear and headed it. It went really well, the sheep was well behaved and the 4-h kid was there so I talked through what I was doing a bit. wrapped up everything included sheep catching and talking in 30 mins.

Then today I goofed around in the morning and then headed up to do some shearing with J. It was not a good day. Every stop just didn't go well. The first stop had Tunis that were so sticky. The problem with the lanolin is that it will solidify if the sheep try and shed but can't really, and then there's just this impossibly thick gunk that the clippers can't get through easily. And it happens most on the legs, belly and neck, all the most sensitive areas that take longer anyway and then the clippers won't go through them. incredibly annoying. I did three sheep of twelve there and it took me probably 3x as long as it should have.

Next stop, the owners were very nice and responsive, they caught the sheep. I started on the first sheep, she managed to kick me in the face and then I promptly cut my middle finger with my clippers and immediately started bleeding everywhere. Same finger as the one I wacked last year, just a bit further up on the tip and just a whole little chunk removed. Like a quarter inch long and decently deep but no skin flap so easy to clean out. I held my finger out and up and handed the sheep to J when he finished his up and held my sweat towel wrapped around it. The owner's mom was there, went to the house, got medical supplies (hydrogen peroxide rinse, neosporin and two types of bandaids) and patched me up with extra wrapping so the bandaids would apply good pressure on it and I could get back to shearing.

I was able to do another sheep, maybe two? Can't remember now. There was only six but J did the big rams. The others weren't bad to shear and  the owners were really good about catching sheep and getting them to us, really helpful and overtipped by a lot. She really appreciated us coming out and made it clear. She had tried to shear one sheep with help and it took an hour and a half and she was happy to pay us to do six in less that that time. My finger had mostly stopped bleeding by the time I finished up shearing, so I'm not going to get stitches.

Final stop I was originally going to do on my own, but asked J to come along given everything. I did two of the five sheep there, just pets. Went fine and the shearing was easy, just one million bugs and also my back was sore by that point.

I guess getting seven sheep done is still good but it didn't feel good. typing is hard with my bunged up finger. It really hurt in the shower after getting home, stung really bad. It is very clean though, I double checked it and pulled one little sheep wool out, otherwise good. It's going to take a bit to heal up I think and it'll be a good thing to show the doctor to get an updated tetanus shot next week at my physical. I'm six years out from my last but I'd rather not wait given how many cuts I get shearing sheep.

This week looks fucking miserable for work given the weather (95F for at least 3 days in a row, overnight only getting down to 70F), but I have wed off and probably I can get the worst stuff done earlier in the morning. I gotta pull the AC out for the living room/kitchen. bleh, crappy start to what will probably be a shitty week

I was out and about three work days last week in the heat and one day of shearing on Friday.

Shearing was an interesting day, because the first stop was supposed to be 12 rams and 18 ewe yearlings and we got there, the rams weren't caught (J tends to be late, but they just hadn't caught them yet). We were set up outside in the sheep's field and they had set up a temporary pen for catching them. They were caught relatively quickly and they hadn't gotten a shearing board for me. Got them all done. I did three. Biggest challenge was the slight slope to the field and ram scrotums. They grow wool on them, so you need to shear them. I muddled through it. The flies were out, so I was pleased with my long sleeve shirt. After we finished the rams, then we thought the yearling ewes but the owner just said he didn't want to do them today so we didn't.

The next stops were scheduled for the afternoon, so J and I went and checked on some of his cows that he had at someone else's property. One of the cows was out and we herded her back in. J checked all his fence line for power. Then he found the second out cow, who was no longer alive. So he ran and grabbed a tarp and covered said cow because the farm owner had some airbnb campers coming later in the afternoon.

Then we moved on.

( rambles )

Yesterday's shearing went really well! 

We started at a place that had 32 sheep, Finn, Tunis and Cheviots in about equal amounts each. Cheviots are jumpers and kickers on the shearing board so J ended up doing most of them. I took my time, taking good breaks between sheep. My goal was to do five at that place, I did six of them! On a normal week, I probably could have done eight or nine so I'm not far off my normal. We started mostly with the Finns and they are smaller sheep and were very well behaved. Then we did the Tunis and Cheviots and they're bigger sheep and less well behaved. But I didn't let any sheep go although at one point, one of the Tunis squirmed around and I ended up just sitting on her while she was on her side which was pretty funny.

I'm definitely improving, I can consistently get the sheep to sit while I run the clippers up their necks, there's a specific position to hold them in to do it and it takes some work to get it right and I was very pleased about it. These were easy shears too, the sheep were in good condition and well behaved overall. The lighting in the barn was good and it was still relatively cool with a good little breeze coming in.

The owner was just going to mulch the fleeces, so I asked if I could take some of them and I came home with four beautiful Finn fleeces. I haven't worked with Finn wool at all but it's a medium wool and beautiful colors. I wish I had grabbed a Tunis fleece but there's always next year. I need to go skirt them since I just shoved them in bags while we were moving along.

The next stop was four Angora goats. I've never done them, so J sheared them and gave them their shots while I did their feet and held them for a topical fly away. It was interesting to watch, the goats have more skin and so more skin flaps and the hair doesn't lay in the same way as sheep wool, so it didn't shear the same way. Maybe by next year I'll try doing one myself. Two were medium size white does and two were grey large wethers. Horns were a little trouble, at one point, one of the does just hooked her horn directly into the side of my thigh, pretty clearly on purpose. They know where they're horns are. But they were hilariously floppy and mostly just laid there.

The woman who owned the goats was really interested in using the fleeces and we got chatting about spinning and things, so she might give me a call and we'll do some fleece and spinning fun.

I decided to keep going after this, I had been unsure that morning, but I still felt good and I had brought lunch. So we went to another stop, which had three goats that needed hooves done and one extremely elderly sheep. I did the sheep, J did the goats' hooves.

Final stop I went to was nine shetland sheep and they were a much harder shear than J or I expected. First sheep I ended up with was clearly trying to shed out and there was an extremely sticky break in the wool right where I was trying to shear. I did about a quarter, including the belly which is the hardest, then handed her over to J to finish since my clippers were getting hot. I need to get them serviced. I let them cool and did one more sheep. After that I told J that I was getting tired, so we switched to him shearing and me doing hooves and drenches to the sheep. I'm glad we did because two other sheep were also sticky and hard to shear.

So in total, I sheared eight sheep, and trimmed the hooves on ten more goats/sheep. I'm pretty pleased with that, a week after having covid symptoms. I was a bit more tired yesterday and I can taste something weird in my nose, but that seems to be the only lasting effects. I'm very sore all over, but I also didn't really workout or shear for a solid month, so that's to be expected. Shearing always makes me sore and today's weird sore place is my upper forearm, just below the elbow. Why is that sore, I don't know. I'm also happy to start replenishing my cash supply which has gotten alarmingly low.

I'm very glad I went yesterday because now I feel more confident for next week's terribly behaved Icelandics that I do solo. goals for the rest of this weekend are: skirt fleeces, maybe do some light yardwork, bake! 

First shearing day of the season went pretty mediocre for me on Friday. The first sheep I did, I managed to do some techniques that I'd been hoping to practice and overall it went really well. I had some dizziness after sheep 1, which I've come to realize is going to happen every time and I need to take a decent break before sheep two. I don't get it again the rest of the day, so there's just something about getting started that is really hard.

Stop two was supposed to be 45 smaller sheep, but we got there and the sheep were in bad shape. I don't think it's particularly anyone's fault. They're more hands off, the owner had leukemia and literally can't go in the sheep barn and his brother taking care of them didn't quite seem to comprehend the problem. Not in a malicious way, but, I don't know, like he maybe couldn't grasp some concepts. Both J and I did two sheep each to see their condition, we could just grab sheep to shear which is not normal. Bad nutrition, probably parasites and some had lambs. So we left. We'll come back in six weeks or so if they're in better shape. J said they weren't like that last year.

After that, it was huge sheep for the rest of the day. I had so much trouble. In total I did eight but my back just absolutely couldn't do anymore. I could bend over for 20 seconds at a time before my lower back would hurt, I would straighten up until it stopped, then do another 20 seconds. J recommended getting an inversion table to help stretch that area since that's probably the issue. The sheep were mostly well behaved except for one absolutely huge yearling. She was technically 8 months old and easily 150 pounds and tall with really long legs. I needed help for her but I got her done. There were nine super pregnant ewes at that stop too, and they were super sweet and well behaved but my back was done at that point, so I just helped J with catching and handing him clippers, things like that. And entertaining one of the ewes who had been a bottle baby at some point. She was tall enough that she could tap my shoulder with her nose and spent some time investigating my jacket, my belt and tried to bite my wallet.

I also wore a hat the whole time which helped with chills as we went stop to stop, plus my red coat.

Sigh. Could have been better. Could have been worse. I was sore in weird ways again.

Yesterday, F and I went to the co-op for my groceries, a hilarious estate sale and a yarn shop. The estate sale was at a rich person's house, and they had weird things like a 10 foot metal horse statue, a five foot tall citrine geode and a signed Dali print. They also had more normal things like nice lamps and like six couches. I picked up two nice lamps and some yoga blocks.

At the yarn store, I got a replacement circular needle for the one that I broke last weekend, some new needles for weaving in ends. I also went digging through the weaving yarn but it wasn't all priced and the owner was away so I left my number and they'll get back to me tomorrow. I might go visit the shop owner's farm on monday or tuesday since they're shearing and she invited the weavers guild members to visit during shearing.

I made ice cream, bread and granola this morning. I'm getting some progress made on sidejob work, getting plans written and sent out. I haven't gotten a ton more requests this week, so if I spend some time this week I might be able to catch up more. One of my work night classes has finally ended so I'll have a little more time to work on them. I billed for february today and it's a good check that I'll get.
( elderly dog stuff )

Friday I took off work, and went to shear 11 sheep. However, I only ended up shearing 8 of them, because one of the ewes managed to kick my clippers out of my hand and of course it landed on concrete, broke a comb and disconnected a wire. It still worked as long as the cord was at certain angles, so I finished the important sheep (lambs heading to slaughter), and left the other three ewes to be done later. 

I drove the clippers to the guy on Saturday, he does the sharpening of the combs and cutters too, and he finished fixing them yesterday. I'll be driving up this afternoon to pick them up, and finishing shearing tomorrow night. They're Icelandics and at least I did the ram first on Friday. But the ewes are 1.5 years old and the farmer only bought them in May, but they'd never been sheared because the previous place was very hands off. So they're big and not happy with the clippers or being rolled around. 

 After I dropped the clippers off, I picked B up from the farm and we did a little pokemon wander around the area and then I dropped her at the train station to head home. 

Sunday morning, I got up and started working on the fencing in the backyard. It's to let Mara out there to wander when she wants and to protect my sad sad garden from the deer. The posts I had driven in two weeks ago, which involved driving a wedge in first as far as I could get it and then driving the posts in afterwards. Most of the posts are decently in the ground. On Sunday, I started cutting the fencing into sections and tying it to the fence. I'm very happy that my sections method has worked with the uneven ground. Since the sections are 7-10 feet long, there isn't a ton of bowing of the fence due to the hill. And once I started gently bending the fencing the opposite way of the roll, so it would be moderately straight. I ran out of both ties and fencing, so when I run to get my clippers, I'll stop and pick up more of each. It should only be one more 100ft roll to finish plus figuring out easy ties for the gates. 

I also finally burned the wood I had laying around in the yard plus some branches that had fallen. Some of the wood had gotten very weird, so if it was a small log, I threw it over the bank. But I burned the stuff full of nails. It was nice to have a fire going too. 

It's finally cold and I think I'm going to turn on the heat tonight. It'll be in the 30s F overnight although we aren't in danger of frost. But only 50s in the day and at a certain point, my hands get too cold to do things, and that's when I get annoyed. It's hovering around 60f in the house right now which is about as cold as I want it during the day. At night it can be cooler. 

Big shearing day today, five with 60ish sheep to shear. Plus two llamas. My goal for the day was 12 sheep.

I did 11! I think I could have done 12 except I accidentally caught my left middle finger in my clipper somehow and had to stop shearing to get the bleeding stopped. It's fine, a shallow flap of skin and it stopped mostly stopped bleeding by the time the farmer got the first aid kit out, although it re-opened as I sheared. It's definitely all done bleeding by now so it should be good to go. I'm usually up to date on my tetanus shots, although I'm five years out, so probably time to get another one just for funsies. I know they say they're good for ten years or something but I'm pretty prone to encountering situations where it would be a concern. But I handed my sheep over to Joe, washed it with water, then alcohol wipes then bandaged it up. Biggest issue is that lanolin will make bandaids and gauze come off and my fingers were sweating so I had to reapply twice and mostly got it to stay on via extensive gauze winding over the bandaid. I knew it was coming off because lanolin will make wounds sting a lot and it hurt. Thankfully it happened at the last stop of the day.

Other than that, it was good! First stop I did five sheep, second stop was two and a half sheep (the jumpy jerks) and I got to watch J shear the llama (first stop was supposed to have a llama but they couldn't catch it), third stop was one (they only had three sheep) and fourth stop was the last four I did. Hang on. Did I math that right? Or did I only do three at the last stop. Well either I did four at the last stop and actually met my goal, or I did three at the last stop and did eleven. Counting sheep as I shear them is difficult. I didn't go to the last stop on the drive because my back was hurting. The main issue is that I also take a very long time to shear when my back hurts, because I can't hold the sheep in the positions they need to be as well as I should. So it takes me longer by a lot. Don't worry, my back is just sore, not actually ouchie.

The fourth stop's sheep had a lot of some kind of poopy muddy situation happening on their butts, which was extremely gross and annoying to shear off so that was bleh.

I got home, showered and ate delicious chicken and rice I made last night. 10/10 past self.

I will be packing in the morning to drive to MD! 

I did some more shearing yesterday afternoon and it was a struggle. J had warned me that these sheep would be difficult to shear. I was expecting sheep that fought but it was more fleece quality issues. 

They were a herd of about 30 Icelandic sheep, which are dual coated breeds that need to be shorn twice a year. J had gone last week and gotten 7 of them done because he had to stop for the day, I was tied up at work too far to go that day. I took the afternoon off yesterday and we went up. 

About half the sheep had been shorn in fall of 2022 by the owners, which they realized they didn't want to do. So the other half had either missed fall 2022 shearing and some had missed spring of 2022 shearing. The wool was incredibly felted, full of manure, hay and dirt. It was so difficult to shear. I struggled a lot with it. 

There is a technique to getting that kind of matting off and by the fourth sheep, I had figured it out after J showed me and I had worked on it. But it required shearing the sheep in a different way than the normal shearing pattern because the shears literally couldn't get through the growth to start the shearing pattern even if I started with the shears against the skin, so I ended up working from the head down. It meant the sheep was sitting up much longer than ideal and of course, they started fighting me. Thankfully, they were pretty small sheep so I didn't let any go and I was able to pin them and keep going. 

We trim their feet too and idek what they're feeding them but their feet were absolute shit. Deformed, flaking, really weird. I did my best on those.

But dang. The owner wasn't bothered by how long it took and J just let me work through it. We didn't even finish them all, there was still six left when we called it quits. J is going to finish them up another day. I did four, it took me twice as long to do a sheep than last week and it was crap shearing. 

I guess I learned a lot. 

ETA: I did feel good after shearing, I didn't get chilled at all and my stomach was just fine. I think doing a little extra carbs right before helped a bunch. 

I ended up being able to do some sheep shearing yesterday, squeezed in between work in the morning and the night class. It was just shearing the bellies of a bunch of pregnant sheep so they'd be ready to lamb in a month or so. I ended up doing 10 of the 40 and I would have been able to do a few more but I had to take a break in the middle of it.

My stomach has been super upset lately, not sure if it's a bug or the dinner I've been eating this week. I felt super nauseous and a little dizzy for a few minutes so I sat down and watched J do some of the ewes while I let my stomach settle. It was also after a particularly difficult ewe who fought me for the first several minutes of the shear, which meant it went longer than it needed to. I was able to get back into it just fine and do more sheep, I just made sure to take longer breaks in between. 

I am pretty sore this morning, I really didn't keep up enough over the winter with workouts unfortunately so ouchies. Oh well, now I know. 

We are planning to do a bunch of full shearing on Monday! Woot!

This weekend was the VT sheep shearing school which is one of only a few in the whole country apparently. I guess there aren't many around because someone came from Michigan for it.

I dropped Mara off to the dog sitter Friday morning, which is a thing I still feel bad about. She's getting more and more stressed every time I drop her off so house fencing stuff will need to happen before the next big trip thing that she can't come with, which would potentially be MD Sheep and Wool in May 2023. Goals. So then someone can just feed her and let her into the yard. We'll see.

( Well this got rambly )