Sheep sheering day!

We went to the sheep sheering event at the Littleton Historical Museum today!  For you Indiana folks, it is called a museum, but it is a lot like Conner Prairie, with staff dressed in period clothing.  They have a working 1860's-1890's farm, with a log cabin, school house, blacksmith, etc.  It is also always free, which is great because it is just about 7 minutes away from our house.  The big event today was the once a year sheep sheering!  In the picture above, you can see the man sheering the sheep behind Perrin.  Then one of the fellas would wrestle the sheep back to the enclosure, and bring out the next one to sheer.

 Here you can see them getting out the next sheep.  It was a cool thing to see up close.  The sheep were surprisingly cooperative once the guy had them positioned and was cutting.  

We got to see the whole process, from sheering to spinning the wool, and finally yarn dying.  Now all I want to do is raise sheep, spin their wool, dye and knit to the end of my days.  I am only sort of kidding.  Someone will be googling "starting a sheep farm" tonight!  There was also a CO couple there who raise alpaca.  They had one alpaca and one llama there.  Their business is raising alpaca for their fibers; they only keep llamas around to protect the

alpaca from mountain lions and coyotes.  What a funny picture this conjures in my mind--this funny looking creature protecting that funny looking creature--boxing gloves would be involved...

Finally, there was a woman who brought 3 trained border collies and her own sheep to demonstrate how the dogs herd.  It was really fascinating to watch the dogs work the sheep.  They were just so into what they were doing, that even when we bent down so Perrin and I could pet the two dogs that weren't working, they didn't even look at us.  They were just super intensely staring at the sheep.  We didn't even exist.  I was jealous of their sense of purpose.

 It was such a perfect day for our outing...in the high 60's with sun.  Aaaaahh.  Tara and Jeff met us in the park next door before hand for a short picnic (is it a picnic if you eat Taco Bell?--Perrin did not eat Taco Bell for those of you gasping in gastric horror).  

I wanted to buy every skein of beautiful yarn I saw today--the way it hung there drying on the line in shades of indigo, yarrow, berry, and soft soft greens...I wanted to possess it, roll in it, knit it, eat it, anything...oh, beautiful yarn.  Seeing its source and how it came to be what it was, only made it more beautiful.  It is so easy to see items in stores and forget all the craft and/or work that went into it.  

Perrin moment of zen...

 

 A little Perrin relaxation time after a tough baby day.