Sheep shearing - Adventure in the country

I went to a sheep shearing this Saturday at www.ewecandoit.com. Judi is awesome.  I always learn so much from her.  She had the spinners skirting fleeces.  I think it was part of her diabolical plan to have us start craving these lovely fleeces by having us work on them. :)  Aislinn and Scolastica met us at the farm.

 

Here we are skirting a fleece.

Judi has a hair sheep herd as well to keep her border collies trained.  Shetlands apparently aren't a good herding breed since they scatter instead of bunching another example of their being a primitive breed.
I learn how to lead a sheep using a harness.  Basically, you wait for them to spot the dog, then you pull them in the direction you want them to go.  Unless the one you all holding happens to be someone's pet.  In which case she heads straight for her human.  Clearly not an exact science.  Harry appeared to have better luck.  He seems to have simply tossed them out of the trailer by brute force when Judi asked if he could help them return the sheep to the other barn.  Sheep wrestling.

My hands were so soft after the skirting from all the lanolin!

Here we are waiting for the next fleece.  Doesn't Triste so happy?  Look at the mess we made  under the table, but look at all the colors of fleece.

Aislinn picked up lovely grayish brown variegated fleece!  Judi felt it had too much vm so only charged her $20!  I think if it were an alpaca the color would be called rose.  Enable?  Who me?

I think I'm constantly surprising and amusing Harry by what I consider a "date!" :)  Please drive 1.5 hours into PA where we're going to help a friend shear sheep, meanwhile I've suckered 2 other friends to come meet me there, so we can hang out at this sort of halfway point doing fibery sort of things.  Once we get there, please help herd sheep.  O_o!?  Ok...  so it was more like sheep wrestling. :)

Here's Harry with a shorn sheep.  I have no idea why it looks like Harry has a leash too.

Afterwards, we (me, Harry, Aislinn, Scolastica and John) went to Isaac Newtown's in Newtown to hang out and catch up on stuff, since we hadn't seen each other in close to a year.
Fun weekend adventures!