It was dark when I finished the chores on the last day of May. The light was blinking on the answering machine. I punched the button. "Call me," the message said. "We`re in your area and can shear your sheep tomorrow. Otherwise, you`ll have to wait until the end of June when we come back to Florida again." Rats!! But I should be used to the last minute call from the shearer by now. This shearer has been shearing my sheep since the mid-80`s and I`ve never been able to impress him with the fact that even one day`s notice would be much better than the late call the night before. At least, I thought, I`d bought wormer. The sheep don`t just get sheared. They also get wormed and the lambs get tags attached to their ears. And that was the other problem - I`d ordered the tags several weeks before but they hadn`t arrived yet. 
The sheep barn with un-shorn sheep (BEFORE)
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Shearing sheep? In Florida? Yup - Cracker sheep, also known as Florida natives, or piney woods sheep - a land-race sheep adapted to thrive in a specific locality. These sheep are descended from the sheep the Spaniards brought over to Florida back when St. Augustine was founded. They`re survivors. They`ve been through wars - the Revolution, Seminole wars, the Civil War. They`ve survived parasites, predators (panthers, red wolves, bears,) bad forage, and the heat, but what they almost did not survive was the demise of the family farm. In the 20th century they became superfluous except to a few ranchers who realized that their genes were valuable since not only could they withstand the heat, they also had excellent parasite and hoof-rot resistance. So, a few farms took on the task of preserving these medium sized sheep of many colors that could thrive in hot and humid Florida. There wasn`t enough time to gather a crew to help move those sheep and grab them for the shearers. It looked like the shearers and I would have to work alone. I called the shearer back, actually got a-hold of him, and grumbled. "We`ll be there in mid-afternoon," he said cheerily. "Maybe you can find a crew by then. It`s always more fun with more people." I found one person to help. Later as I tried to fall asleep all the problems that I had experienced with shearing sheep came drifting through my mind - the escaped sheep, the lagging lambs, the entire flock refusing to enter the barn (the dog would help there) and the heat. The sheep barn is not connected to the shearing barn so a chute has to be improvised to forestall runaways. There`s always a lot of grumbling by the volunteers and the shearers about this. For some reason, they forget from year to year the mad dashes after sheep that are determined not to be sheared. But I recall vividly the race to head off the escapees, the slogging through brush to root out that damn sheep that jumped the fence and thought himself free. (Are there snakes? Is this poison ivy?) Once we needed to use the wheelbarrow to transport two rebel sheep that were finally cornered back in the sheep barn and were too hot and winded to walk down the lane to the shearing barn. I fell asleep and dreamed of sheep jumping fences like gazelles. 
The sheep barn with shorn sheep (After)
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The shearers showed up late in the afternoon. I was worried that there might not be enough light left in the day to finish shearing them all but the shearers were confident and ready to work. We got the sheep in the barn with only two escaping over the fence. One of them had a 2 week old lamb who could not jump the fence. I snagged it and used it to lead mom over to the shearing barn. The other sheep got lonely and followed along. We finished just at sundown. By dark, all the naked sheep were back in their barn, trying to sort out who was who. (They are visual animals that identify each other by sight more than smell.) The shearers had packed up all their gear. And I was heating up the chili that I`d made the night before to feed everyone. The next day I went to the post office and the ear tags had arrived ... | 
