Tom and Mette have become fast friends of mine & the Mr’s, they own and operate Ranch Of The Oaksup in Lompoc and when Mette invited us to shearing this year I knew I had to go.  I have to admit, I didn’t really know what to expect or what, if anything, she would let me do (I mean you don’t want some newbie screwing up your fiber and your livelihood right?) but I guess I must have misjudged her trust in us because we were soon thrown into the thick of things.

Preita, the Mr, & Jim posing with the first Alpaca of the day.

Notice that smile? Yeah, that was the very first animal of the day, our very first alpaca and neither Matt or I knew at that point that there were 55 more animals to go.  Seriously though, it was awesome.  It was hard work for sure because even though alpacas aren’t big they are quite strong.  I had head duty the whole time which means I had to make sure that they stayed put, where their head went so did the rest of their body.  Thankfully there weren’t any serious incidents where anyone actually got hurt.  They are, after all, an animal that doesn’t understand why or what you are doing.

I will admit that I thought I would be taking a whole lot more pictures during the day, but I didn’t. I instead worked my butt off with the rest and it was awesome.  The first animal went on the table at about 9 am and we were done with the alpacas at about 5:30 pm.  I, along with most of the women took a short break to make and eat sandwiches and, like most of the women brought down food to shove in the men’s mouths as they worked and refused to quit.   I may be a hard core feminist, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make him a sandwich and take care of him. 

the Mr feels quite at home here.

(I’m sure a lot of people think that I pose or make the Mr look a certain way when I take his picture, but often he is rarely aware of what I’m doing or that I’m focusing on him)  It was nice for the Mr to be around like minded men too.  He’s quite happy when he’s dirty, sweaty and working his tail off and there aren’t as many men who’d like doing that as you can imagine. I think this weekend he was around kindred spirits.  The men didn’t talk much all day, they were dirty, sweaty, tired and extremely appreciative of that glass of jack at the end of the day.

Patrick gets his equipment ready for the final animals of the day

Patrick and Jim were amazing shearers.  I have to admit that I was afraid of getting in Patrick’s way at the beginning of the day.  He was definitely there to work and I’m glad that Jim asked for our help because I doubt Patrick really need TWO people who didn’t know what they were doing and would get in the way of his flow.  It was neat to see the same kind of zen expression on his face that the Mr gets when he chops wood. 

After all the alpacas and llamas were done Patrick showed us a quick shearing of the Icelandic Ram.  It was amazing, he caught the ram and just flipped him on his butt where the ram went into a sheep trance and just sat there like a baby until Patrick had finished shearing him.

Patrick shearing the Icelandic Ram

He looked much better albeit naked afterwards.  The ram, not Patrick

Besides shearing there were the regular antics and fun things that you just don’t get to do at home in the suburbs like bottle feeding a lamb.

Matt feeds Little Dude his bottle

Feeding the rest of the animals isn’t as personal.

You get to do things up here that are just neat. Like eat an ostrich egg for breakfast.

I am going to steal Baxter and his freaky multi-colored eyeballs and take him home. I love this dog.

Baxter

So that was our weekend.  I’m kind of thinking about maybe bugging Mette during the week at the mill and maybe getting some mill training since I’m not working and that woman could totally use help in any way as she’s probably the busiest person I’ve ever met!  Till next time!