Sheep Shearing here in Australia

This long post is especially for all those living in other countries to show you a little bit of what else goes on around our property apart from my Patchwork business. Geoffrey, my DH, works over 4000 arces of land, running Merino sheep for wool and cattle. Last week he finished shearing for the year and these are a few photos I took in the shed.

First up is "Noel" Geoffrey's very faithfulworking dog, enjoying a rest in the comfort of the soft wool under the classing table.

We grow fine merino wool and most of the wool that is grown on our property is sold at Auction and usually goes to Italy to be processed there and made into fabric for mens suits and other garments.

I will run the photos in order to show you the process of shearing a sheep.

This is a photo of the sheep in the yards waiting for their turn to have there coats removed, these are younger sheep called Hoggets, about 12 months old, don't mind there red markings on their noses, that is just paint.

Next they are put into a pen in the shearing shed, then the shearer drags them out and starts shearing, they shear the belly first then the face. This wool goes into a seperate bale. Apart from these two sections, the fleece comes off the sheep in a whole piece.

Once the sheep is shorn ,the shed hand picks up the fleece and throws it carefully onto the classing table, were the fleece is skirted and classed, it then goes into a wool press and is pressed into very large bales that are marked with the property brands and trucked to the wool stores, where it is then sold at auction..Each year Geoffrey ( or should I say the shearers ) shear about 3,500 sheep on our property, each shearer usually shears about 120 sheep per day so the process takes a a few weeks in total to complete.

I am so glad I have my own business to run, a patchwork shop is a much better place for a women then the shearing shed, it is pretty hard work out there and the talk in the shed is not fit for a womens ear alot of the time.

Anyway hope you have enjoyed learning a little more about life on my hill.

Take care

Kerry