It’s that time of year again—shearing weekend on the farm. Once a year, like it or not (and trust me, they don’t), every ewe and ram gets a haircut. It’s a few days I always dread in advance. You know it’s coming, you wish it didn’t need doing, and you start daydreaming—again—about switching to hair sheep.
Every spring I spend a little time researching them. Hair sheep shed on their own. No shearing, no sweat. But then I remember: the meat’s not quite as good, they don’t breed out of season as well, and they usually have fewer lambs. So… I keep scrolling. Keep shearing.
Every year we also scramble to figure out who can do the shearing and when. But this time, for the first year ever, we were lucky enough to bring back the same shearer we had last year—Hannah. She’s sharp, skilled, and now that we’re getting to know her, easy to work with too. But I still worked myself up in the days before, picturing two straight days of sheep wrangling and wool chaos.
Last year I’d set up a chute and shuffled one ewe at a time to her. As each was finished, I’d move the next in, clean up the wool, repeat. It worked, but it was a busy, backbreaking blur for both of us.
This year, Hannah had a new idea: “Pen shearing.”
I blinked. “Pen what now?”
Instead of a chute, she asked for a small pen with 5 or so ewes at a time. She’d shear them right in there—surrounded by the rest—just grabbing one at a time while the others politely waited their turn.
I had my doubts. Sounded like a recipe for flying wool, bruised knees, and sheep in all the wrong places.
But I trusted the pro, and we got things set up.
And you know what? It worked. Like… really worked. Hannah sheared, tossed the wool out, and the next ewe was right there beside her, ready to go. I helped out every half hour or so—but otherwise?
I found myself… sitting.
Feet up. In a chair. Watching a few videos on my phone while Hannah worked away, surrounded by sheep, cool as anything.
A few hours in, Hannah looked over at me with a grin and said, “So how do you like this new setup?”
She was dripping with sweat. I was halfway through a YouTube rabbit hole.
“Yeah… it’s great, Hannah. More work for you—but great for me.”
Truth is, it wasn’t more work for her either. Things went faster, smoother. Just less scrambling on my end. And to top it off, I’d arranged for the neighbor boy, Wyatt, to help out on Saturday—mainly to deal with our five big rams, who require more muscle to handle.
We tackled the rams as a trio, and after that? Well… I was officially out of a job.
Supervisor Rod, at your service.
So yeah, the weekend I was dreading turned out to be more of a woolly vacation. Just another classic case of me turning a molehill into a mountain.
Turns out, the mountain was a comfy chair and a front-row seat to someone else doing the heavy lifting.
Farmer Rod
