Shearing day!

So shearing is over for another year! The weather was absolutely perfect! I was working in a sleeveless T-shirt most of the day...and this, after the worst stretch of winter anyone can remember...it was an answer to prayer!
Our shearer is young, and small, and FAST. She does not take breaks. She does not chit chat. She shears, and shears, and...oh wait...she did stop once, when she saw HOOVES sticking out of a ewe! You can see the results above. I named her Kalyspo. I know that's not you you spell it, but we're on "K" this year, so I had to get creative. She half Icelandic because there was an Icelandic ram in the Rebel Horde [which is what I call the group of sheep that spends the whole summer outside the fence.] Since last year was so extremely dry, the electric fence was not working properly, and the Rebel Horde was bigger than usual.  Anyway, the ram lamb grew up, and resulted in several half Icelandic lambs born way too early! We prefer to shear everyone before they lamb...but we are over halfway done now...
Between Josie in labour and delivering on the shearing floor, and Eweliette having a lamb as she waited to get shorn, and Fiona just starting labour after she got sheared, it was an interesting day!
And then of course, there was Frostbite. [See him below] I had to break my letter rule just for him. He was born on January 28. the day BEFORE we got stuck in the Polar Vortex. He was born outside, with no intervention. He had no jacket. No heat lamp. Nothing. He survived his second night when the ambient temperature was -40 C. Without factoring in the windchill! There were cold warnings everywhere. Being half Icelandic, and having all that fleece, really helped him. But we REALLY don't like lambing that early...maybe NEXT year we'll get it right!

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