Shearing Phyllis

Last April I bought two sheep and a goat at a livestock auction. Both of the sheep are interesting specimens. Phyllis is a tall sheep with a grey face and legs, white wool and small horns. She weighed 175 pounds (wool included) when I bought her. Phyllis’ pal, Marilyn is a hair sheep, meaning that instead of wool she grows hair. Marilyn weighed in at 75 pounds when I bought her and is really a beautiful animal. She’s light brown on top with black markings, no horns and big, pretty yellow-brown eyes.

My husband, Cass and I unloaded these three critters into a pen in our barn. With the pasture that we had earlier fenced off for them quickly greening up we knew we had to shear Phyllis reasonably soon (we figured it would be easier to catch a somewhat skittish 175 pound sheep in a pen rather than in a two-acre pasture).

Cass and I had never shorn a sheep before nor had we ever actually observed a sheep being shorn. We started reading up on it. From what we gathered all we had to do was: spread a tarp down in a small pen (this would catch the wool and keep it from getting dirty); get the sheep to stand on the tarp; position the sheep between our knees on it’s back or side; use a clippers or scissors to first trim off any dingleberries or dread locks, discard these; and finally proceed to clipping the fleece starting at the animal’s head and clipping in wide sweeps across the body until you get to the bottom. The fleece should come off in one neat piece leaving a nicely groomed looking sheep in its wake.

The whole procedure seemed pretty straightforward and Cass and I figured we could probably de-fleece Phyllis in maybe 15 minutes (since we were inexperienced, an experienced sheep shearer could probably do it in 5). I thought to myself, hell, I could probably have half a scarf crocheted of Phyllis’ fine wool by the end of this evening.

I called my parents, who live just down the road, to set up some day care for our then seven month old son. They said they’d be more than happy to come up and watch the festivities. They showed up with a camera and an extra pair of scissors.

Cass and I were pretty certain that this was not Phyllis’ first rodeo (according to our readings sheep that have been sheared in the past are not really all that opposed to it). So we sauntered into the pen reasonably confident that we could easily herd Phyllis into the prearranged sheep shearing area that we had prepared.

Phyllis was simultaneously onto us and unimpressed with our herding abilities. She easily side-stepped us, carefully avoiding the open gate that led into the shearing area. As a result, we soon learned that this was going to be a more hands on kind of job than we had previously thought. We commenced tackling Phyllis. My husband and I are not very large people. Phyllis outweighed each of us by about 45 pounds plus she’s a way better wrestler than either of us could ever hope to be.

After some serious wrestling and few choice words that had nothing to do with sheep shearing, Cass managed to secure Phyllis in a head lock (I use the term “secure” loosely here). Really Cass just had a hold of her neck and he was leaning back and trying to put the brakes on while Phyllis, obviously the one in control here, trotted around the pen in apparent denial of her need for a haircut.

I chased this Cass-Phyllis train along with Marilyn and the goat for a few turns. I finally got my bearings and started bringing up the caboose by grabbing onto Phyllis’ hind end. I started pushing her and to the best of my ability also steering her. Between the two of us Cass and I managed to steer/drag Phyllis to the sheep shearing area.

Right away we learned that there were a few problems with our shearing set-up. First off, Phyllis was terrified of the tarp we had spread on the floor and actually started bucking. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” hollered my husband as Phyllis thrashed him up and down. “Let ‘er go,” I hollered back as I released my end and frantically started kicking the tarp out of Phyllis’ way.

A second problem with out set-up was that Marilyn and Phyllis could see each other through the gate and were experiencing severe separation anxiety. They let us know how distressed they were by adding their deep, sad bleats to the general chaos.

Realizing that shearing Phyllis (wouldn’t ‘Shearing Phyllis’ be a great name for a band?) was going to be more complex than we originally expected, but knowing we had to press on, Cass moved onto the next step which was; position the sheep between your knees. This act of bravery earned Cass more than one sheep ride around the pen.

At this point we decided to discard everything we had ever learned about sheep shearing (which wasn’t much) and develop our own method. Our method was this; hold Phyllis down anyway you can and clip her wool in any manner possible. My dad hopped into the pen and helped us out. Throughout the next hour the three of us managed to hold Phyllis down in many ways (at one particularly hectic point we even had her hog tied) and clip copious amounts of wool off in a willy-nilly fashion.

When it was finally finished, Phyllis looked reasonably shorn. Examining the tangled mass of wool lying haphazardly on the floor I decided that since it was already April I really didn’t need a new scarf after all.

What's Eener Planting?

Here is a list of most of the veggies I’ll be planting this coming season. I’ve broken them down into early, middle and late categories based on records I kept on last year’s garden. These are estimates and certain produce may be ready earlier or later depending on weather.

Early (June and July): arugula, bok choi, carrots, comfrey, dill, green onions, horseradish, lettuce, new potatoes, radishes and swiss chard.

Middle (August and September): beans, beets, beggas, broom corn, brussel sprouts, cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, kohlrabi, okra, onions, pasta squash, peas, peppers, potatoes, sunflowers, tomatoes and turnips.

Late (October): corn shocks, gourds, ornamental corn, pop corn, pumpkins and winter squash.

Some things, like radishes and lettuce for example, may reappear in your boxes sometime between August and October since I usually plant those types of crops more than once.

Here are some other things I plan on growing that I didn’t have harvest records from last year: luffa, garlic, cockscomb, broccoli, sweet peas, musk melon, fennel, leeks, basil and cilantro.

Raking Dad's Hay

It’s January 3rd and it’s been windy, damp and grey out all day. It’s now sleeting out. What a perfect time to reminisce about making hay. This morning I fed my goats and sheep some hay that looked about like the day we made it; leafy, a beautiful shade of green, smelled like a breath of summer.

Back in the day, farmers used to cut hay by hand with a scythe (think grim reaper style) it was then left to dry in the sun and finally piled up someplace, usually in a hay mow. They had to salt these piles to keep them from starting on fire since large volumes of organic matter tend to put off a lot of heat and eventually become combustable. Like most aspects of farming, making hay has been mechanized and today their exists all manner of machinery to assist farmers in making hay faster and more efficiently.

Even though a lot has changed in the making of hay over the years one aspect of it has remained a constant, hell hath no fury like a farmer with hay down. This is an understandable constant since many factors have to come together before a decent bale of hay can be produced and most of these factors are beyond a farmer’s control. Besides actually raising a good crop which involves soil maintenance, plowing, seeding, etcetera, you also have to have a fairly lengthy stretch of dry and preferably sunny weather. This is all in addition to having an equally long stretch of no mechanical breakdowns.

If something should go awry, for example unpredictable rain or an impromptu engine overhaul, a farmer could potentially get a sub par crop, a crop that is much smaller than anticipated or worse, no hay at all. As a result, a farmer could end up with little or no grub for their critters in the winter thus they may have to either sell critters or buy hay. In short, there’s a lot riding on a hay crop.

I’ve helped my dad make hay in some capacity for the past 12 years. Over these hay seasons I’ve witnessed a fair share of furies spurred from making hay. I’ve seen my dad get frustrated over twisted twine, busted rake teeth, punctured tractor tires and broken belts. I’ve seen him out run thunder storms by coming down off steep field roads with a full load of hay rattling behind a chugging tractor in top gear. I’ve heard him swear like a sailor and seen him sweat like a butcher over his hay making endeavors.

This past summer, my dad promptly sprained his knee (making it pretty much impossible for him to drive a tractor) right after cutting all his hay. Hay that has been cut should be raked and baled as soon as it’s dry enough otherwise you risk exposure to moisture which is really bad for hay; it can deplete the nutritional value or even ruin it all together. As if my dad wasn’t already pressed for time, I had never raked with his new rake and needed to be trained in. My dad recruited my brother-in-law to run his baler for him and set to work teaching me the intricacies of running a V rake.

For the record, I’m used to running a circular rake (a totally different deal) and my dad is somewhat of a perfectionist plus we had that whole “hell’s fury” thing happening what with all that downed hay. The training session stretched through the better part of two days with my dad trailing me on his four-wheeler pretty much the entire time I was raking.

At first dad hollered out instructions from his four-wheeler perch with a note of gratitude in his voice. He concocted an intricate system of hand gestures which corresponded with the many positions that the rake had to be maneuvered into. But as the day wore on and I struggled with the higher speeds that the rake required and the fact that it doesn’t perform as it should on steeper hills, the hollering stopped and the barking began. I started concocting a few hand gestures of my own. Needless to say, by the time all the hay was raked, tempers were running a bit high as were rpms on the tractor.


Furies aside, making hay is actually a pretty enjoyable part of farming that is if everything goes right. You not only get to be outside in beautiful, sunny weather but you also get to enjoy the smell of fresh cut hay (quite possibly the best smell on earth). Additionally, when it’s all said and done you can look at the pile of bales and know you’ve been a part of producing something really important and tangible. The fun doesn’t stop there; you also get to feed your animals something tasty and green in the dead of winter (hay bales are really bales of summer) and animals get excited about and enjoy good hay.