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Ovine Psychology: Sheeplock Holmes Cracks the Case!
Well, cross that off the list. Chez She’s Sheep Shearing (good grief, try saying that five times fast after a few glasses of Laphroaig) is done for another year.
Almost thirty years ago, I attended my first sheep-shearing class, a three-day lollapalooza thrown by the County Extension Office at the local fairgrounds. Paid good money for it. Brought my new shears with me; the victims sheep were supplied by a local farm. I came home with the 24×36-inch “How to Shear Sheep” poster covered in useful illustrations, and with a whole bunch of newly-learned techniques, “It’s not a matter of strength, it’s a matter of balance!” “Control them with your knees–your knees!” “Bend at the hips, not from your back!” And, most important, “Keep your fingers out of the way of the blades!” (I’ve only violated this rule in a meaningful way once in the intervening three decades).
When we weren’t learning how to position ourselves at precisely the right balance point so that the slightest wobble on the part of the sheep would result in the two of us ending up on the ground with the electric cord wrapped tightly around us both while the three-inch cutters on the shears whirred madly back and forth at about 3000 strokes a minute a few inches from my eyes, we were learning all the things that we could possibly do wrong: “Don’t shear off the pizzle hair!!” “If it doesn’t appear to have a full set of the family jewels, make sure it’s a ewe, not a wether, before you start shearing off the belly wool!!” Watch out for the dingleberries!!” “Shear across the wrinkles, not parallel to them!!” And so on.
But we made it through and nobody died (At least, I don’t think so).
I’ve done my own shearing most years since then. Oh, when we had a hundred or so in our flock, I would sometimes call in reinforcements, but, truth be told, I don’t like to watch others shear my sheep. I’m a terrible backseat shearer. I can’t stand to see the sheep nicked or cut (it’s inevitable that they are, and that is what the spray cans of antiseptic Blu-Kote and Scarlet Oil are for–if you’re of an artistic bent, and you use both of them judiciously on certain of the sheared population, you can produce what we call around here ‘patriotic sheep,’ a nice admixture of red and blue on a white background.) We’ve only had one truly memorable wound in all these years (not as a result of something I did, I hasten to add, but caused by a young man who set foot on my property just the one time). “Who would have thought the old sheep to have had so much blood in him,” as Shakespeare might have said, if he’d written a play about sheep, instead of Macbeth. I finally got it stanched with most of a five-pound bag of flour and several wadded-up washcloths, bound tightly with a couple of old pairs of pantyhose. That stayed on for about a week, and the sheep was fine, and at least “didn’t die hereafter.” Well, not for a good many years, anyway. I’ve not hired a shearer since.
In the intervening years, I’ve modified my technique considerably. I went to Angora goat shearing school during our Angora goat phase (their morphology is slightly different from that of sheep, their hair is finer than most wool, and they are more difficult to shear–most professional shearers won’t touch them), and I adapted some of the goat-shearing techniques to sheep, when it seemed to make sense and was easier for me. I attended a workshop with a world-famous sheep shearer (there are such–really) at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Show. His first question to me was “Do you shear the sheep standing up?” Somewhat mystified, I admitted that, yes, I did stand up when I sheared the sheep.
“No,” he said, “I mean with the sheep standing up.”
Oh, joy! Bliss! Rapture! No more balancing the sheep on its buttocks while squeezing with the knees, reaching around under the jaw with one arm and twisting the head, then drawing the clippers across the neck while hoping no blood gushed, and wishing for at least a third hand and for another six inches of leg so that my back would stop aching. Just put the sheep on a blocking stand a few inches in the air, to get it to a comfortable height, fasten its head down (all of that is a bit more difficult than it sounds, but worth it), go to town on the back, shoulders, flanks and outer legs, then take it off the stand, lie it down (there’s a nifty way to force it to lie down), stick your knee in that special place which renders it largely incapable of movement, and shear its head, belly and tail. Done!
That’s been my go-to technique for about a decade. I round the sheep up into one side of the barn, take them out one at a time and shear them, worm them and trim their hooves, then release them into the field. They don’t like it at all (just to be clear, I don’t ask for their permission before I shear each one), but I “get ‘er done,” as they say in these parts.
This year, as a result of exigent circumstance, I tried something different. And a miracle occurred.
I rounded the sheep up into the usual small pen (because it’s easier to grab them and heave them out of it if they can’t run far). But because I have not yet shoveled out the barn, I couldn’t get the blocking stand stable on the floor (too much hay). So, what’s Plan B?
Plan B, it turns out, was to go back into the confining pen, grab the alpha ram (Cricket), who weighs about 250 pounds, and who has an impressive set of horns. Fortunately, he’s also a total lovebug, and he allowed me to shear him standing up, in the pen with all the other sheep. He was quite affable and agreeable (bottle baby), and it went very well. Amazingly well, in fact. One or two of his ladies stood close by and made goo-goo eyes at him, and he smiled at them. It was a Hallmark moment.
Next, FDR, a smaller ram who had a form of polio while he was a lamb. And, he stood for me too, under the watchful eye of Cricket, who calls the shots for the younger guys in the flock, and bats them around if they misbehave or get out of line.
Then, a couple of the girls, who couldn’t take their eyes off their lord and master while I sheared them, and who totally forgot to be their usual idiotic, flighty, struggling, sheepish selves as they and Cricket gazed adoringly at each other.
It was marvelous. Actually, it was incredible. And as I sheared one relatively quiet and calm sheep after another, I began to wonder about what was happening, and eventually, I realized that it was nothing less than a microcosm of a little patriarchy in action. The head of the social unit, Cricket, enforces the societal rules, requires good behavior from the weaker males who look to him for standards of behavior (and if they violate them, they get soundly whumped), while the ladies enjoy his protection and his favor, and in return, they hold his attention, and, perhaps, civilize him a bit. I came to understand that shearing them on the ground in this tightly confined space, rather than dragging them out one at a time and up onto the blocking stand, allowed them to exhibit their normal social behavior with each other, with the unexpected side benefit that they became much easier to handle and deal with. Lesson learned, with sheep. Now I have to see if I can apply something similar to people (I’m not sure the analogy transfers exactly, although I think I’m on the right track).
But, before I get too enmeshed in overthinking that, it’s time for some Laphroaig. Slàinte mhath!
Published in Humor
Ari,
Now just wait a minute!!! I turn my back on this post for a day or two, having commented on the good & talented She’s special ability, and now it’s turning into some sort of sheep worshipping cult.
Ari, I demand an explanation!
Regards,
Jim
Possibly the funniest comment of the year . . . .
It’s Shaun the Sheep.
Ari,
Well, perhaps I have underestimated my ovine friends. They seem to be more creative and resourceful than I at first surmised.
Perhaps I’ve just had a baaaaad day.
Regards,
Jim
Wether or not you did, Jim, there’s no need to feel sheepish.
Could be. Just make sure you’re not getting fleeced.
I’d bet the farm ewes had worse days. Never mind. All’s wool that ends wool.
Time to pull out the Wallace & Gromit in “A Close Shave.”
Oviously, this conversation has reached a tipping-point. (Can you tip sheep, as some unkindly do with cows?)
Sheep have a pretty low center of gravity, and they’re hard to tip over unless you know the special technique. You can “tup” sheep, which is the process of putting the ram in the field with the ewes and . . . . errr . . . . letting nature take its course.
One can “dip” them, too – if I recall James Herriot’s stories correctly – right?
My son told me last night that a Chicken Run 2 is in the works.
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/chicken-run/272996/chicken-run-2-is-officially-happening
I hope it doesn’t succumb to ‘sequelitis’ and that they don’t muck it up.
My favorite animal movie of all time, though, is Babe. It has sheep, too!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_(film)
Beware of the bad cat bearing a grudge…
That cat exactly resembled, in both looks and behavior, my own Pookie. He probably deserves his own post, and is the only cat I know of who was actually rescued by a nice fireman who got into the basket of the ladder truck, was elevated about forty feet in the air, and grabbed the terrified Pookie from his precarious perch before he fell out and onto the ground, head first (like his two-legged mom, Pookie suffered from the occasional inner-ear balance problem).
The first VFD I called, asking for help, laughed at me. The second, much nicer, man said “well, we need to do a ladder drill for October, so, where are you again?” and they came and rescued him.
I don’t think ewe can . . .
Ba-da-bing!
Are you here all week, @stad? :-D
I’m here every week, now that I’m retired . . .
Lord bless Mrs. Stad…
. . . and glasses of Chardonnay!