Nothing to do with walking, but I thought readers might like to see what I was up to last Saturday . This is an annual event for my family, organising our small flock of sheep to be shorn. Something vital for animal welfare, but always a good bit of fun for us and our neighbour’s children who come and watch and join in. The fleeces are put to good use, either for spinning or for making into felt. Julian, one of my friends from the village, lives part of the year in a yurt and the fleeces are made into felt to line his dwelling. Up to two year’s ago we used to take our sheep up to one of my neighbour’s farms to get shorn along with 100’s of other sheep. However in the last two years Rick a part-time Shearer and a dying breed of British sheep Shearers – (they are mostly Aussie’s and Kiwi’s touring around Britain) comes to us. Rick soon made short work of giving our sheep a crew –cut with a bit of help from my youngest son William and our neighbour’s children Chloe and Abigail. Oh and a Kiwi joined in, my sister-in-law’s partner Adrian got to shear one of them. He use to shear them with hand clippers back in New Zealand . Here are some photos……..
Rick with his son shears one of our Jacobs
The man from down under has a go
William my son helping out
Chloe joins in
Abigail uses the two-handed method !
The finished articles
Mark's walking blog 
“….always a good bit of fun for us and our neighbour’s children.”
Fun for the readers too, Mark. Nice one!
Paul
Just a bit fun – makes a change from writing about walking 🙂
Takes me back a bit. We used to shear around 400 sheep – all with handshears and my job was rolling the fleeces. You stank of wool and grease for days but boy were your hands soft.
Thirsty work that must have been. Keeps you fit.
Mark