Yes. The Naked One Over There. That One.

I finally got off my bony (heee!) ass and got around to getting a shearing machine so that I can give my herd a much needed clipping. I have been imagining coming home and finding one of them keeled over from heat exhaustion and it is not a pleasant picture to imagine. But we had been putting it off seeing as how The Husband is still a member of the walking wounded from our last sheep wrangling adventure (twisted/sprained/cracked ankle) so he is not up to helping in gathering them up for the task.

Because getting the darned things shorn isn't the hard part. It's the catching them that's hard. Very, very hard. They're quick, and heavy, and damn but their kicks hurt. But I was determined - I have a machine and by God I'm going to shear a sheep come hell or high water!

Thing One and I developed a plan. The smallest female, Oreo, was going to be our target. Seeing as how she was the easiest to 1) grab, 2) hang onto and 3) keep positive control over, she was our logical choice. This of course means that we're leaving the most difficult one, Rambo, for last. By then, we'll probably need to call in reinforcements, but for this first foray I just needed to figure out if I could actually shear the sheep on my own.

By sectioning her off from the rest of the herd, it was actually easy to capture Oreo, and the new halter I had purchased made a huge difference in getting her to where she needed to be and tethering her in place. Then I turned the machine on, and lo! within about 45 minutes, she was shorn! Success! Only a few nicks to her skin in some of the common trouble areas, no big gushing of blood, so only a liberal application of betadine was necessary for treatment. Not to bad for my first time ever doing this. I think I could actually get the hang of this!

We turned her loose back in the pen, and her baby (now nearly as big as mom himself) was in a frenzy because mom? Well, she just didn't get a haircut, she went totally bald! I have never seen a more confused creature as this lamb. Bleating and carrying on, sniffing at her, running away from her and then coming back. It was a fascinating sight to see. I've never really paid attention to what happens when one sheep comes back to the flock significantly altered before. At first they're rejected, but then recognization dawns, and the lost one who has obviously been tormented by The Humans comes back to the fold. Just like dying your hair chartreuse or something shocking like that.

A friend came over later in the weekend and we were looking at the sheep and I was commenting on how I felt like I had actually accomplished something by shearing just one of the herd. "So now which of the sheep did you do?" he asked.

"You mean you can't tell which one it is?"

"Oh, I suppose that it's the naked one, right?"

Yep. We've got a naked sheep running around at the Sheeple Ranch, people. And it is a very pretty sight. (Picture to follow this evening!)