"Shearing at Dumgoyne Farm....."

Tuesday, I drove to Jacqui's farm outside of Blanchardville to watch her sheep being sheared. I should have said sheep and llama's. ;) Here she is with her shearer Bob, starting on "Georgie". Georgie, if you remember, is the "kissing llama". In an earlier post, I had a photo of him in Don's face......a very up close and personal llama. :)


Georgie's (wool/fleece/hair?) was very soft. When reading about llama fiber online, "guard hair" is always mentioned. Personally, I really didn't see anything that would be called guard hair, but then since I am totally ignorant of it, it could well have been there.


Both Georgie and Pepper (pictured) stood calmly as they were sheared.


This was the 2nd sheep to be sheared. I totally missed getting a photo of the 1st one, which is shown in the last of today's photos. I was hoping to take a photo of each one so that Jacqui would have a photo to show the fleece "on the hoof", so to speak. Unfortunately, I forgot a couple of times due to helping with other things. The shearing went smoothly, but there were 49 to shear.....not a quickly completed chore. I got to the farm around 9 AM and left close to 2:30 PM, not being able to stay longer. They finished shearing close to 5 PM.


Here is the 1st sheep to be shorn that morning. Only 48 more to go. I can't imagine doing the job that Bob did. I would not be able to stand that position for the time it would take to shear even 1 sheep! I don't think I could have done it even when I was young and in better condition.......