Shearing Day

First of all, I forgot to tell you something about Bandon. I was reading a list of events they have in the area and one of them is a cranberry festival. The thing about this that I thought was neat is that the high light of the event is a high school football game they call the Cranberry Bowl. I just love the idea.

Anyway, on to shearing.

Yesterday was the day so all day Wednesday was spent in the barn, cleaning, sweeping, rearranging. It was a hard day of work that paid off just in time. About ten minutes after my help left in started pouring down rain and I had to lock the alpacas in the barn. Nobody likes to shear wet alpacas and if the fleeces are even a little damp you have to find clean, dry places to spread them out to dry or else they'll mold in the bag and then it becomes compost.

So yesterday when we got started it was just like all the other years. The shearer has to teach us again how to hold, put the animal down, etc., but after the first three or four we all fell into a routine and we managed to shear all 24 alpacas in about an hour and 45 minutes. All in all it was a good shearing day, and now I have to start skirting fleeces all over again. (I skirted the last fleece from last year on Monday.)