Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Shearing bucks at the Home Ranch
photo by Pat O'Toole

Shearing season has come and gone. It is always intense. The ewes must be shorn before they lamb, and lambing is a date certain (five months less five days from when we put the bucks in last December). We have seen neighbors have a run of bad luck—late shearers, spring storms—who ended up lambing “in the wool”. Shearing after lambing is a mess. The wool has gotten dirty, and the lambs have had a much harder time finding the nipple among the wool “tags” hanging down. The ewes and lambs have been separated for the shearing and must be reunited. If cold weather has hit, the ewes haven’t gotten cold and sought the shelter needed for their lambs. If it is warm, the ewes get itchy and try to scratch. If they get over on their backs, with a full year’s fleece, we can experience “back loss,” as they cannot right themselves, and die on their backs. In addition, the shearing crews come and go before lambing generally starts, and it can be very difficult to find a large professional crew capable of shearing commercial numbers of sheep.

In short, it is imperative to be shorn ahead of lambing. Add to this the long trail that our sheep and the herders make from the Red Desert winter country to the lambing grounds in time to lamb. Typically, we leave the Red Desert in mid-April and start lambing the 8th of May. The shearers set the schedule and we try to work around it. If it looks like they will arrive relatively early (around April 20th), we shear in the Badwater Pasture, which is our big leased checkerboard pasture (private and BLM) about midway along the trail. If they tell us that they will arrive the first week of May, we trail onto our private Cottonwood pastureland north of Dixon—part of our lambing grounds—and shear there. It is easier for us to shear at Cottonwood since it is only 20 miles from the Home Ranch. It is easier on the sheep to shear at Badwater because then the heavily pregnant ewes do not have to pack an extra ten pounds of wool as they make the last 50 or so miles of the trail. This is 75 miles from home and means driving home every night and taking a big lunch out every day.

In any case, it is not our decision. We shear when the shearers arrive. For about a week ahead of time, we talk to the crew boss every day, and he keeps us informed of their progress. His job is not easy either, as he juggles anxious ranchers, iffy weather, and a fluid crew. Finally, usually about two days after the projected arrival date, we all converge on the agreed upon spot. The shearing crew travels with a portable shed, and usually a caravan of campers and pickup trucks that form their moving work site as they travel from flock to flock.

This year we were worried. We had gotten a letter from our shearing contractor mid-winter listing his difficulties in finding a crew and managing the really difficult job of scheduling and juggling men, women and equipment, all the while shearing himself. The recent crackdown on visas for foreign workers has made his tasks particularly difficult. Work visas must be obtained for foreign shearers—most of them are from New Zealand and Australia—and new regulations have made this process particularly cumbersome, slow and expensive. He expressed concern that he could not hire enough shearers to run his crews. We go through a similar process to hire foreign sheepherders, and it is increasingly difficult, but we do have a longer time frame to work within.

This year has been odd all around. After years of drought, we were trailing through snow drifts. After we decided that we would shear at Badwater, we found that our usual spot near a reservoir was impossible to use this year. The reservoir had flooded the portion of the corrals that wasn’t still drifted under. We had to pick a spot that is easily accessible by the big shearing rig, so we decided to set up on the high ridge where we often ship lambs and ewes in the fall. This ridge is right on top of the Continental Divide, and is prone to wind. The unheard of happened, and the crew arrived a day early. We trailed hard to have sheep there and ready to go. The weather was iffy but we were “up against” as our old Greek neighbor used to say.

The usual crew of seven was six this year. We sold a thousand ewes last fall, so we figured we would still get through in plenty of time to make the rest of the trail before lambing. The first couple of days went pretty smoothly, but then the shearing crew started dropping out. One young man cut his hand and two of the crew, including the boss, were down with the flu. We have a good health care clinic in Baggs, so we directed the ailing shearers to it. In the meantime, three guys, shearing 200 head a day were struggling to get through the sheep. And the weather was worsening.

For us, the extra days meant that not only were we not getting on the trail to the lambing grounds, but we had all hands working the corrals, for extra days. Meghan and I were cooking and driving, driving and cooking. Pat was juggling the rest of the spring work with the ongoing shearing.

Finally, we had to shut down for two days while it rained and snowed. Some of the crew came down to the Home Ranch and finished up the unshorn rams and everyone else rested. This let them heal up. Finally on the last two days, all six shearers were back at work, and the weather held. We had to push hard to get to the lambing grounds.

Siobhan, Seamus, Pat and unshorn ewes
Badwater
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Corral crew at work
Tono, Siobhan, Antonio, Seamus, Sharon and Meghan
photo by Pat O'Toole

Oscar and Seamus working the chute
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Pequino (son of Suzie and Bruiser)
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Siobhan working the dog (or vice-versa)
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Sharpening
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Gemma packing wool
photo by Sharon O'Toole

George and Donna with wool packers
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Lunch
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Buck, waiting for the blade
photo by Pat O'Toole