Taking advantage of the past few days of above-freezing temperatures, today I readied the barn for shearing, which is scheduled for early February. We do not have enough sheep to warrant setting up the portable chutes and shearing floor that professional shearing crews travel with. In past years, our dog, Weed, has been a great help in pushing groups of 20 - 30 ewes into a holding pen in the barn. However, she has never assisted in moving the sheep, three or four at a time, into an adjacent small catch pen, out of which each ewe must be backed, one by one, onto a sheet of plywood where the shearer takes over. Of course, naive first-time ewe lambs are easy to push into that small pen; experienced older ewes are decidedly less cooperative. Inexplicably, the older I get, the more resistant they get.
I have lost a fair bit of sleep recently visualizing a solution to that resistance, and today I worked to bring my nighttime envisioning to reality. I was able to drive metal posts where needed, despite hitting frozen hard pan not far beneath the surface. The holding pen is essentially unchanged from previous years, so Weed will still have an important job. In place of the catch pen I created a crowding alley and chute out of metal posts and portable panels. Most of my time was spent measuring and trying to anticipate sheep-think that would thwart my best efforts to create a smoothly-functional set up. By the time I finished, the sun was low and the barn dark; tomorrow I'll try to get a picture. If the layout works as intended, our upcoming job will be a breeze for all but the shearers. Of course, the cautionary tale of best-laid plans made by mice, men, and, yes, me, is in the back of my mind. Stay tuned.
I have lost a fair bit of sleep recently visualizing a solution to that resistance, and today I worked to bring my nighttime envisioning to reality. I was able to drive metal posts where needed, despite hitting frozen hard pan not far beneath the surface. The holding pen is essentially unchanged from previous years, so Weed will still have an important job. In place of the catch pen I created a crowding alley and chute out of metal posts and portable panels. Most of my time was spent measuring and trying to anticipate sheep-think that would thwart my best efforts to create a smoothly-functional set up. By the time I finished, the sun was low and the barn dark; tomorrow I'll try to get a picture. If the layout works as intended, our upcoming job will be a breeze for all but the shearers. Of course, the cautionary tale of best-laid plans made by mice, men, and, yes, me, is in the back of my mind. Stay tuned.
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