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Author: Donna Dixon

The Shearing That Wasn’t…

The Shearing That Wasn’t…

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I volunteered to write a blog post to be published on May 29th.  I thought this would work out perfectly because I could take pictures and talk about the shearing process of my flock that was to take place on the 19th of May.  I would have 10 days to pull it together.  What could go wrong… right?  Wrong!  The Spring winds in the high desert of New Mexico can be very strong and brutal and this year is no exception.  At least we do not have tornados like they do East of us.  Kerry ( the shearer) had to cancel because of the high winds that day.  Given that he was blown over and had his ribs broken last year, who can blame him.  Also, the fleece gets blown away when it comes off the sheep.  He had an opening two days later on Thurday afternoon and I thought I could get some pictures taken then to post.  Once again the winds did not cooperate.  Kerry is one of the few shearers in the state and is highly sought after for his time.  We are now scheduled for June.  That definitely does not fit into my posting schedule so, I thought I would post what I have from past shears and some odds and ends of the life of a wool producer.

In preparation for the shear, the week prior, I trick my sheep into the pen where they will be sheared.  I back my UTV with their food in it into the pen and they rush in to get their breakfast.   

The sad part is, they should not eat before they are sheared.  The position they are in to be sheared makes it very uncomfortable for them if they have food in their stomachs.  On the day of the shear, my husband will accompany me up there and will keep them in before they are fed and close the gate fast as I pull out of the pen.  And no, that is not my husband in the UTV.  Charlie dog has to stay in the cab or he will chase the sheep and not in a good way!

 

Once the sheep get penned up, Kerry uses his shepherds hook to hook a leg, while they are running, and then grab that leg and bring them down.  This is no easy task.

I get the flock into the barn for the vet and she brings a couple of young techs with her and they chase them down in that small area and  just grab their backs so she can innoculate them.  We let them out of the barn when she’s done and whittle down the flock that way.  Or, they can be wrangled like my son and daughter did in this picture.😂🤣  I tried to coat the Wensleydales and they grew out of them too fast and we were attempting to remove them.

Here is Kerry at last year’s shearing.  He does everything with hand held shears.  It looks back breaking, doesn’t it?  Notice the garbage can in the picture below.  We throw away a lot of the already icky fleece from their underside and bottoms.

 

Here is another picture of the shearing with Stella looking on after her haircut. After the shearing I take the bags and bags of fleece into our steel storage building.                                

   From here I do a light skirting of the fleece and then throw it in parts into the tumbler.  Here are a couple of  pictures of the tumbler.     

There is a lot of dirt that comes out from it being tumbled but I still pick quite a bit of hay from it by hand and then it is ready for a scour.  I use very hot water and Unicorn Power Scour wool wash being very careful not to felt it.  The water from the scour turns into mud so I scour a couple of times before rinsing.  I think I saw in one of Jan’s posts how good the dirty water is for your garden and she is not wrong.  It is not good to go down the drain with all that lanolin to clog your septic system.

That is what the shearing process is about.  Now, I have to keep my fingers crossed for cooperative weather for the next scheduled date but I do see thunderstorms in the forecast for the afternoon of the 2nd.  In the meantime, those Wensleydale locks just keep getting longer.

I thought I would close with a bit of “cuteness factor”.  Last Fall, a friend of mine took  a Wensleydale ewe home with her to keep.  She then bred her with one of her Merino rams and here are the results.

 

I can’t wait to see that resulting fleece!

 

 

Greetings from New Mexico

Greetings from New Mexico

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My name is Donna and this is my first blog post on the Felting and Fiber Studio Blog.  I read it regularly and recently responded to a post by Shepherdess Ann with the fact that I too am a shepherdess.  Ann invited me to post about my sheep and felting.  As the title indicates, I live in New Mexico, just east of Albuquerque, in the high desert, where it is not always warm as some might think of New Mexico.  At an altitude of 7200′, we get snow and cold in the winter and warm to hot in the summer, but not enough moisture because then it would not be desert.

My husband and I started a hobby farm late in life because of my love of fiber.  We presently have 18 sheep,  2 pigs,  14 chickens, 2 livestock guardian dogs and one Australian Shepherd.  I started this adventure with Angora goats.  Of course they have beautiful locks as you can see from this photograph of CeCe on the left but as you experienced felters know that fine fiber does not felt well without wool to hold it down.

 

I then acquired a pair of twin Leicester Long wools, Winken and Blinken, from a friend in Colorado.  They have nice long wool but I was not pleased with their fiber color which did not resond well to dyeing.  They are big boys, wethers.  The goats have since gone to live with a guild member who is a spinner and weaver.  I could still get fiber from them if I wish.

I decided that Wensleydale sheep were what I wanted.  Thanks to the North American Wensleydale Sheep Association, I found a breeder in Oklahoma and my husband and I drove over to Kerrville and picked up a ram and 3 unrelated ewes to start my flock.  There are not many Wensleydale sheep in New Mexico.  The girls had 6 uncomplicated births.  Then there was Maddie, my 7th, who was rejected by her mom and had to be bottle fed.

I brought her into the kitchen and luckily my experienced shearer came the next day and told me that was a mistake.  She needed to be out with the flock for her own protection.  If she wasn’t used to being with the flock and later kept separate from them she would be the first to be attacked by a predator.  I complained to him that I was too old to be night bottle feeding in the barn!  He set me straight with a morning, noon and evening schedule. Whew…  At first it was exciting but quickly got old. (I bet Ann, the experienced shepherdess, is smiling at this.)  I have not bred any more ewes since.

Here is Maddie when she was abandoned in the barn and here she is now.

I have since acquired 6 Debouillet sheep from a friend of mine. The Debouillet is a cross between a Rambouillet and a Merino.  The breed was developed in Tatum, New Mexico, in the 1920s and they

have a nice wool fleece.  The total now is 18 sheep, 3 rams who live a boring life, 13 ewes, and 2 wethers who live in another pasture.  Winken since passed away and I sold one of my ewes.

Here is a picture of the ewes waiting for their breakfast. As you can see from the picture, the flock does not get to enjoy the green rolling hills like their relatives in the UK.

 

 

For those of you who purchase your wool, so do I.  As many of you know, the process of preparing fiber straight off the sheep is an onerous one.  It must be skirted (my least favorite job), scoured and then the locks must be picked. Last year, I had to take all my unskirted fleece to the dump because it had become infested with moths… Ugh!  The moths especially love the dirty stuff.  But surprise, surprise, there was much more after the shearer had come!

Here is a picture of the before and after the scour of some Wensleydale fiber.

 

I made cobweb felted scarf/shawl from some of the locks I hand dyed.  It was one of the items I sent to a Guild sale and was asked by some of the members working if I knew it had holes in it and did I want to take it home and fix it 😢😢  sigh…  There are not many felters in my guild.

 

Here is a picture of some scoured Debouillet fleece.  It is a shorter fiber, and I have not used it in any felting projects yet.  It still needs to be combe or carded to get more of the VM out, but it is not nearly as difficult to remove as it is from those tight Wensleydale curls.

I hope I haven’t bored you too much with the sheep stories.  The sun is coming up and it’s time to feed all the critters.  It may be in the barn today because the forecast is calling for snow.