Sheep Shearing

 In 2009 I tried to go watch the sheep shearing, but got there just as they were packing up the last of the wool. (Click here to see that post and interesting comments.) This year I did a lot better. We got out to see some of the setup (seen in my last post), and we went back the next day to see the sheep shearers in action.

We got there in the late morning and found that hundreds of sheep had already been sheared.

 The wool sorter was busy taking wool from the shearing trailer and placing it in the appropriate bin.

We found Morgan, our wonderful hostess from the day before, and she led us into the sheep shearing trailer. Desert Boy was a little intimidated at first by all the noise, mostly from the generator and electric motors used to power the clippers.

 The sheep trailer is a bit cramped, with space for seven shearers to wrestle 200-pound animals. The first step is for the shearer to tumble a sheep from the little platform under the curtain and onto the floor.

 Then he starts shearing the belly.

 Next up are the rear legs. The wool is really thick, and it looks a little strange as the big, bulky animal is generally transformed into something much smaller and bonier.

 After the rear quarters are exposed, it's time to start near the ears. During the whole process, the sheep was surprisingly docile. I have a feeling that not all are quite that easy to work with. It must also take a lot of practice to get the sheep into just the right position to shear efficiently and quickly.

 Some of the shearers use harnesses to shear, as bending over all day is really hard on the back. They usually start at 7:30 am, work until about 10, take a 15-minute break and then work till noon. After an hour-long lunch, they work all afternoon with a 15-minute break about 3 and finish around 5:30 pm. That would be a lot of bending and wrestling sheep. With seven shearers, they can shear over 1,000 sheep in a day.

 The wool came really nicely off the back of the sheep. It made me remember a wonderful sheepskin we had at home when I was a kid.

 The shearer is almost done, and you can see the huge pile of wool on the floor. It seemed nearly as big as the sheep!

 Then the shearer opened a little door, directed the sheep in the right direction...

 ...and out went the sheep. The whole process took about three minutes.

Time to clean up! This was the last sheep for this shearer before lunch, so he cleaned his clippers, oiled them, and got tidied up before leaving his work area.

 This sheep shearing outfit is owned by Cliff Hoopes, seen above. He's from Wyoming and shears in several states.

 He stopped and talked to me before heading to lunch. He wanted to know if I was involved with the water effort, referring to the opposition of Southern Nevada pumping thousands of acre-feet of water from the desert in east-central Nevada over two hundred miles south to the Las Vegas area. I said yes. He said he wanted people to know that he was against that pumping. If the water tables drop and the sheep don't have all the food and water they do now, he'll be out of business out here. He currently shears about 45,000 sheep in the area, and he said he's just one of the shearing outfits.

 In addition to the shearers, he also employs folks to operate the wool press. This expensive machine compacts the wool.

 Wool from each bin is pressed.

 It's getting smaller.

Then the bag is closed and marked with a number, the brand (Okleberrys) and the quality of wool.

 Desert Girl had fallen asleep on the way out to the sheep shearers', but Desert Boy was eager to check everything out, and Morgan was so nice to show us around. While she answered Desert Boy's questions, I wandered around a bit, taking some photos.

 I talked to Edwin, who agreed to pose for a photo when he realized that he had taken video of me dancing at the Sheepherders' Party. It must have been a pretty funny video, because he kept laughing as he mentioned it!

 This was the lunch spot for this young man.

 On the way back to the van we passed the empty chute, where the sheep are painted with the brand.

 There was also a branding iron in the fire, but I didn't see any sheep branded. Anyone know which sheep get branded? (Please leave a comment if you do.)

The sheep look really strange after being sheared, in particularly they look so bony! You can find out a little more about shearing from this article in The Prairie Star, written this January about Cliff Hoopes' shearing operation.


Finally, I wanted to end with a photo that really shows what a fenceline can separate:

The unsheared sheep sure don't look too concerned about how they will soon look. With hot weather fast approaching, I bet they don't mind losing their heavy wool coats.

Sheep Camp

November is the month when sheep usually come into our valley for winter grazing. In the old days, it was a rush to bring sheep from more populated areas along the Wasatch Front in Utah out to our isolated valley. There would be one or two sheepherders for each 2,000 sheep. A sheepherder would live out of his wagon, going to a rural store every few weeks to get supplies. Otherwise, it was him, the sheep, his horse, and his dogs. A pretty solitary life.

Today it's still a fairly solitary life for sheepherders. Not many people want to do it, and sheep operators often have to recruit men from other countries to be sheep herders. We see quite a few Peruvians come to this area, spending a year or two watching sheep before they go back to see their families.

Our ranch doesn't raise sheep anymore and hasn't for quite awhile, but we still have this old sheep wagon. The other day I decided to take a peek at it to try to get some insight into what it was like being a sheep herder.

The interior is sort of like an ultra-mini-RV. There's a bed, folding tables, and built in seats with storage space underneath.

One big difference from today's RVs is the presence of this coal/wood burning stove. Because sheep herders are out in these wagons on the desert valleys in the winter, it can get really cold. Sometimes they even get trapped by blizzards for days at a time.

Here's a wider view of the "kitchen/living area" of the sheep wagon. A sheep herder really doesn't have room for a lot of extra stuff.

There are some compartments on the outside of the sheep wagon, like this one for coal. There's a big one under the bed for spare tires, fuel, and other equipment. Often a separate wagon is left next to the sheep wagon carrying hay for the horse.

The wagons are simply built. A back window is a bit of a luxury. There are no shocks on the chassis, so everything has to be well secured before moving the wagon to a new location. Nowadays, the wagon is moved every week or two as the sheep continue moving to graze available forage.

The wagon above is obviously old, and you're probably wondering if sheep herders still live so primitively.

The answer is no. This is a newer sheep wagon. It still has small windows, a small shape, lots of storage compartments, and a wood burning stove. But it also has solar panels. 

An Unexpected Visitor

 I glanced out the window Saturday morning and noticed a sheep wandering in through the gate towards the cookhouse. I did a double take. A sheep? I wasn't hallucinating, was I? I didn't have any flowers blooming so I didn't need to race outside. I shook my head, wondering if that would make it go away. Then I got distracted by something (or someone) else for a little while. A few minutes later I opened our front door (which is really the side door, but as the front door opens directly onto one precious piece of unstained carpet, we rarely use it), and saw the sheep was on our front steps.

Hello? 
Are you selling something? 
Do you have pamphlets to distribute? 
Do I know you?

For some reason the sheep didn't answer me, but he (and it was obviously a he) didn't give me any pamphlets either. He also didn't run away, which surprised me. Perhaps he didn't run partly because our dear dog Henry was so busy sunbathing in the driveway that he didn't even notice the sheep approach. (Note to would-be robbers: he does bark every time someone drives into our driveway, so if you want to rob us of our wonderful collection of toy trains, kids' books, and broken crayons, come disguised as a sheep and you will be able to get right in.)

 I moved around to get some different photo angles. The sheep was content to stay put.

 In our few minutes of acquaintance, I was getting fond of the old guy. I mean, what's not to like with the grass hanging from the shaggy wool, the dirt-stained nostrils, and that nearly comatose demeanor?

I got bored before the sheep did, and since I didn't know what to do with a sheep on my front steps (would you know what to do?) I went back into the house and did something or other. But I couldn't resist going back outside to check on the sheep. It wasn't on the front steps anymore.

 Now it was in the flower garden. If the flowers had been blooming, I might have been a wee bit upset. Okay, it would have been a lot more than a wee bit. But at this time of year, I was hoping that the sheep might be helping to push some seeds from the native flax into the ground to enhance their chances of germination. So I didn't chase him out. Plus, he was just so darn cute.

 Henry had woken up from his stupor by now and gave a few half-hearted barks. The sheep didn't seem to care. Henry went back to the driveway and laid down to resume his sunbathing. Life is good when you're a relaxed black lab.

 This was about the extent of concern that the sheep showed. It kept standing there and again I got bored, so I went back in the house. As I was cleaning in the kitchen, I peeked out the window and found that the sheep had moved to another part of the yard.

 Yep, I guess that sheep was ready to play!

I still didn't know what to do with a sheep in the yard, so I just ignored it. When my husband came home for lunch, he said we should get it out. (Hmmm, who woulda thought?) Lucky for us, it wandered through the gate and headed for the neighbors. (In case you're wondering, towards the neighbors with the crazy bull. Those neighbors apparently just attract weird animal behavior!)

I did wonder where the sheep had come from, and this morning I saw that the sheepherders had moved their camp to just above town. I also noticed something else that might have caused a distraction to the sheepdogs that usually keep the sheep in line. Can you spot the distraction in the photo below?

 Here's a close-up to help you out:

 The cutest little sheepdog puppies! I counted seven of them, and they were all so adorable.

 The mama came bounding up to the truck and I recognized her as the same dog that had greeted us last week on our adventure walk where we collected the bones for Henryosaurus. I rolled down the window (which usually isn't recommended with sheepdogs), and she was happy to let me pet her and say sweet things and compliment her on her gorgeous pups. I was wondering what her calorie requirements were to nurse seven pups. Yikes!

 The pups ventured towards us a bit to check us out.

The mama sheepdog might be a little hampered protecting sheep right now, but before long she's going to have a big bunch of helpers!

Traffic Jam on a Seventy-Mile Stretch of Road without Services

 When you're driving on a seventy-mile stretch of road with no services, no stoplights, no stop signs, and only one house, you don't expect to slam on the brakes. But that's exactly what I had to do when I saw that the road was blocked by traffic. It wasn't exactly the traffic you see most places. This was a huge flock of sheep.

Open-range laws are in effect here, where the sheep have the right-of-way. The open range goes back in history. Until barbed wire was invented in the 1870s, it was much easier to fence places where you wanted to keep livestock out, rather than to keep them in. Gradually practices changed, but there are still a few places in the American West where you can find open range.

 I didn't mind stopping and watching the sheep pass by. I think sheep are kind of cute!

 It was a steady stream of sheep crossing the road.

 Occasionally a brown sheep passed by. The sheep owner usually puts in one brown sheep for every 25 or 50 white sheep so they can be counted more easily. Also, an occasional sheep has on a sheep bell, ringing loudly as the sheep moves so that the sheepherder can follow the sheep by sound.

 One sheepherder, along with a couple dogs, can easily move a couple thousand sheep. Many of the sheepherders these days come from Peru and Mexico. About a hundred years ago, many of them came from Basque country in northern Spain, which accounts for the large number of Basque restaurants in places like Elko, Nevada.

After all the sheep had crossed the road, a large sheep dog followed casually. The sheep dogs help protect the sheep and are often a little scary, but this one was friendlier than usual. Still, I wouldn't want to get out of the vehicle.

Well, our little traffic jam only lasted about five minutes. I could easily live with that. Our quick stop also reinforced that you shouldn't go anywhere without your camera!