There is one main objective for me in June which is at the top of my shepherding list. Get my sheep shorn as soon as possible. Our shearer is absolutely fantastic. I sent the normal text to him and awaited the reply, which was pretty swift. Yes, he said, will be with you in a couple of weeks’ time. That was on the Thursday. Friday morning, I get a text to say see you at 5 o’clock tomorrow. No warning, no nothing, but if you don’t say yes you never know when you might see him again…..if ever, as they are in high demand! So drizzle was forecast and of course you can’t shear wet sheep. So plan A was to get in what sheep we could as soon as possible and pray that the drizzle didn’t happen.
Bringing them in overnight means they have to be strawed down and guess what… you are right, the fleece gets loads of straw in it which is a definite “no no” with the wool board. Hey ho! Had to be done. 3 o’clock arrives and no drizzle so I get the rest of the flock in with lambs at foot and feel grateful that all is going well. Another text…….. “been delayed, as the farmer where we are shearing can’t count, and we have another load to do – see you about 6 ish”. I thought we would be rolling wool late into the evening.
Well, when they arrived I was surprised, as behind the shearer’s big truck was an even bigger, new, enormous trailer – it was a metallic work of art. A sheep shearer’s dream. They parked the trailer up in the yard and within minutes we were underway. It would take all of the Parish Magazine to describe this trailer, but in brief, the sheep went up a ramp in single file, 2 gates operated by the shearers feet got the sheep onto a platform about waist high to me on the ground, and 2 shearers’ got to work. Seriously it only took an hour. For us wool rollers it was also wonderful as we worked at waist high rather than rolling the fleeces on the ground. It is an extremely noisy occasion as the lambs bleat continuously trying to recognise their mums without their full fleece on. We also had help from Charlotte and her lovely man Jack, as we took the opportunity to trim feet and sort out any problems – thankfully not too many. The 2 huge Jacob rams took some shearing and we always pen them up tightly after they have been shorn as they sometimes don’t recognise each other without their coats on and will fight. A few hours of solitary confinement and they were soon back in the field.
A real relief for me and the sheep – a job well done. The wool is all bagged up in large wool sheets, sewn up at the top, ready to be sent off to the wool board. The cheque will arrive sometime in the future and the cost of taking it to our nearest bank will be more than the value of the wool. Maybe I need to stock Merino sheep rather than Jacobs and Black Welsh Mountains – maybe not. I love looking at these parkland sheep and the meat is to die for. You can’t have it all.
Janet East
