Shearing

My stinky shaggy flock of crossbred ewes mills around the too-small holding pen on shearing day. "Send the first one!" hollers the shearer. His station is all set up: a square of clean plywood, an overhead hook for the clipper's drive unit and extension cord, and wool felt booties over his work boots so he can step on shorn fleeces without disarranging them.

Everybody who knows one says the traits of a good shearer are a strong back and a weak mind. My shearer is among the best. Fortified with a wide black weightlifter's belt and three beers beforehand, he will peel the fiber from my forty sheep in a short day's work, if I manage to keep up with him.

He is the temperamental superstar; I am the crew and supporting actor. (The sheep, I suppose, are the anonymous extras: necessary but interchangeable.) Into the pen I go, laying hands on the head of whichever sheep first passes within range. Using the strength of my knees, my back, my arms, and all the force of character I possess, I coax her through the gate and into the capable grip of the shearer.

Out of the pen comes a ponderous matronly-looking ewe covered in six

inches or more of greyish-yellow wool. A few minutes of New Zealand

dance moves with the shearer, and then she returns to me all greasy-clean-white, svelte, and embarrassed. Back in the pen she goes, lesser in diameter and in avoirdupois.

This concludes her Year In Fleece. She will start growing next year's clip as soon as I turn her out to pasture this afternoon. My own Year in Fleece is just beginning: by this time next year, I will have processed that uncomely heap of dirty raw fleece into beautiful, usable, saleable products.

It took my sheep a year to grow the fleece. It will take me a year

to transform their fleece into the income I need to keep them through winter once more. First comes soap and water, then picker and carder. After that it's the spinning wheel, niddy-noddy, and dye vats (all colors), followed by swift and ballwinder and knitting needles (all sizes), unless maybe it's up on the warping board, through the raddle, and onto the beam so I can weave.