Catching a break…

Funny isn’t it how back in early April we were so desperate for rain and it wouldn’t come, yet with two days to go before shearing we just got over 1.5″. To put that in perspective, had it been cold out that would have been the largest single snow fall of the winter of 2011/2012! In any case it appears now that Mother Nature will in fact take at least a little pity on our fleecey plight and desist with the total downpours. There’s even talk that we might see the sun for a moment or two later today!

Three days of shearing gets underway tomorrow morning around 8, though before then we have to gather all of the supplies to fuel (DONUTS, COOKIES, BROWNIES!) our hard working crew as well get everything set so that we can trailer the animals from the Main Barn up to the Arena starting first thing in the morning. The Arena will be set up in such a way that each side of the building will have one holding pen inside for when the critters first arrive and then a second pen into which the animals will be placed as they get shorn. The two shearing stations will be adjacent to these pens with one side/station serving males tomorrow morning (our Juveniles and Yearlings in this case) while the other station handles the females from the Main Barn. Day two on Friday will lead off with the Herdsires and a few older yearlings from Stud Barn (again trailered up to the Arena, though less involved as there are only two different feed groups in the boy’s barn) and then once we are finished with the boys, we will then take on the bulk of our female herd which live at the Arena for the remainder of that day and on into Saturday. It should be tiring but fun. Man cannot survive shearing 2012 on high-fructose corn syrup alone…or can he? We’re about to find out.

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