May is for Shearing

May is synonymous with sheep shearing on our outfit. Even though winter was officially over in March, it never feels like spring until the sheep are sheared— I’ve got to see all those months of South Dakota winter sorted and packed tight in wool bags to believe winter is through with us.  

Although we always worry about a May surprise storm, green blades of grass and warmer temperatures convince us it’s time. It’s tricky – if we wait too long, ewes will have to lamb with their wool on, which makes giving birth more difficult and risky on the prairie. We also have to get sheep trailed out to summer pasture miles away before they have their lambs. On the other hand, shearing too early leaves ewes vulnerable to freezing rains and late snow.

The ewes are usually pretty easy to bring in for shearing. They’re ready to get off winter pasture and onto summer range. They’re ready for a change and so am I. I’m ready to spend fewer hours in the tractor and more in the saddle herding critters to summer range. I’m ready for new adventures.

After shearing is done and the wool has been hauled to town, there’s a heaviness that leaves me. It reminds me that the gloom of winter wasn’t for nothing and new life is on the way. We made it through monotonous winter feeding— those eternal gray days, when I peered out from under my icicle eyelashes searching for sheep in a January blizzard. Now those same sheep are on the shearing floor, many pregnant with twins and triplets.

Shearing is hard work. The corrals must be readied; the sheep need to be trailed in on horseback from winter range and put in the barn so dew or rain won’t make the wool too wet to shear; meals must be cooked for the crew. But there’s a certain satisfaction to it. I like to see the ewes after shearing run and jump to the pasture, feeling weightless. I like to feel the wool and save the best fleeces to spin into yarn on my wheel. I like the softness of my hands from sheep’s lanolin after hours of skirting.

Shearing takes a big crew. We need at least 10 people in addition to the five shearers to get it done. Finding available people to help is always nerve racking. We don’t keep 10 people on staff, so we rope our friends and family into helping out. Thanks to them, we are able to pull it off.

Shearing is easily the most work intensive event of the season. It’s a whole lot easier to find branding help than shearing help. Shearing starts at around 7:30 and ends by 6 for the shearers, but prepping for the next day lasts until dark for the sheep wranglers. It’s a bit tedious, and frustrating at times too — on hotter days the sheep are sluggish (also very pregnant) and don’t want to waddle up the alley and into the shearing trailer. One has to physically push them up sheep by sheep.

After over 4 days of shearing, everyone is exhausted. But it’s a content kind of tired. We know there’s more work to be done— lambing, trailing, branding calves, and docking. But after shearing, we know we can get it done – and even enjoy it a little too.