Shearing complete

At last the girls have been sheared and are looking elegant and thin. This was a new experience for all of us and not as traumatic as we thought. Our girls were very well behaved and even the yearlings who were being sheared for the fist time did not cause too much stress. I have to say the youngsters are being slightly more jumpy when I go into the barn now than they were before!! However all of them are cleaner looking now and not sticking their necks, legs and anything else they can into the water troughs now.

Their fleeces have been sorted, which was a slightly dusty job, especially the first timers. Not made easier by the fact that the dogs thought it smelt great and was something for them to play with and kept splitting the bags just as we had got the fleece in it. The yearling fleeces are so soft it was like sorting cotton wool, wafting about - it will produce fabulous yarn to make into ultra soft socks, jumpers etc. They have been dispatched to the mill and are being processed along with the rest of last years fleeces. so soon we will have a store cupboard restocked with lovely yarn and products to sell.

My daughter and I tried to get the hay into the barn on Tuesday, but only managed to move 80 or so bales out of the 200 sitting there, before getting absolutely soaked and abandoning the task, much to our annoyance. The wet bales have been left to dry off this week, and hopefully can be stored away at the weekend - weather permitting!!! Got told afterwards that if we had tried to store the wet bales they could have spontaneously burst into flames as they dried off, so glad we did not do that then!!!!!! We will be trying to cut down all the thistles too, busy weekend and short handed now as daughter gone off to work at Cowes week, having 'survived' her parachute jump yesterday!! Yes it was a birthday present from her Dad last year, and only now managed to get it done. She, and I, were terrified before the event. I had to go and check she got down safely and will admit to actually crying on the way home out of sheer relieve! What a softie!!!

Well must go now to get the cat in from chasing the froglets, the dog who has got himself stuck on the wrong side of the fence and bring the bin in which has somehow got itself into the middle of the road causing everyone to brake rather sharply as they come round the corner!!