Saturday, May 26, 2007

shear work out

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

There are reasons you won't see modern health clubs out on the prairie. First of all the population density is nil, allowing for only a tiny customer base. Secondly farmers get plenty of hard physical labor during the course of a day. Couch potatoes need not apply for this job.

If you want to shear a sheep you must first get it into the barn, which as we witnessed in yesterday's photo can be no small feat. Then you grab the animal and left him up for the takedown......

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

The animal, now on his back is easier to control.

Let the shearing begin.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

6 comments:

Lorianne said...

The posture of the sheep in that first picture is so strange, with its back & legs perfectly shape. It somehow doesn't look like a sheep in that position!

Anonymous said...

That wool looks so filthy and matted though. It's hard to realize that it can be turned into a nice sweater. I wonder who first had the idea of taking this stuff and making clothing out of it. Whoever it was, the person had far more vision that I do.

Anonymous said...

The experts make sheep shearing look easy and I can assure you it is not!
Sara from farmingfriends in the UK

Suzanne said...

Yes Pablo, I thought the same thing. Although I've learned to spin with a drop spindle, I've never prepared yarn from this dirty, messy state. As far as the first person who ever thought to shear a sheep - I've wondered that about any number of activities - WHO ever thought of doing this?

Marie said...

Sweet. That looks like how I wrangled my dog, Harley, when I had to sheer her. In the last photo, the sheep looks like it is kinda giving us a smile as if it has a little secret...

Leo Morrison said...

Veryy nice blog you have here