Muy, Muy, Caliente*
*very, very hot
It’s a long story, but we currently have 6 sheep on the farm who missed their March shearing. And since it’s so &^% hot outside, we gotta get that fleece off. They’ve been living in and around the barn so they can get out of the sun, but it’s still too ‘caliente’ for them.
So imagine this. It’s shearing day in late June, three months after the usual shearing day. It’s nearly 90 degrees outside, and the sun is beating down on the roof of the barn. You’re in the back of the barn where there’s no air flow. Every movement you makes sends the sweat pouring down your face, trickling down your back. You feel soggy, sticky, and close to fainting.
If you can imagine all this, then you can imagine what I felt like in that barn….
….taking photos of Melissa and Robin shearing the sheep.
Oh, I was hot. After I’d taken my seven photos, I staggered back to the house and drank a gallon of water to replace the lost fluids. I rested under the ceiling fan for an hour until I felt slightly restored. Melissa and Robin sheared for a few hours, plagued by dull shearer blades and an overheating machine that tended to smoke if it wasn’t given a regular rest.
I’m sure they were cool since they seemed to be in high spirits. And besides, their clothing was totally soaked through with sweat, as were their headbands, so I’m sure the breeze blowing across the wet fabric cooled them… oh, except there wasn’t any breeze.
Anywho… most of the sheep got sheared, but that overheating shearer (the mechanical clippers, not the human) need some work before Melissa can finish.
Speaking of clipping, our cat Pumpkin had his annual spring shearing, which leaves him a bit naked but free of the horrible matts that form during the winter. I actually was part of that shearing, getting to hold him, wrapped in a towel, as he squirmed and cussed us out the thirty minutes it took to shear him. Pumpkin has claimed the new deck table as his, as well as my knee.
The garden is growing as if on steriods, the lambs are getting huge (photos soon), and we’re staying cool. Today for noon dinner we had steamed asparagus (ours), spinach salad (ours), and lamb kabobs (also ours.) Felt really, really good.
6 Responses
I feel your pain, really, I do. I know it not from shearing sheep, but from stacking small square hay bales. In a barn. In hot & humid weather, and no breeze. Long pants and long sleeves are usually a good idea, too, as it helps protect you from the very scratchy hay. Of course this makes one feel like you could pass out all the sooner, but I’ve learned from experience not to forgo those items. There is never a shower that feels so good as the one I get after stacking, with hay chaff sticking to the sweat.
Hope it’s a little cooler when you finish up the last ones! I’m sure the sheared sheep are much happier critters!!!
We, too, find gardening with friends a great thing. This recent weather of rain followed by heat has everything going nuts. Weeding is a daily task! Isn’t eating a meal that completly from your farm just the greatest? Now thats living big & rich!
Gardening in 90 degree humid heat with long pants and long-sleeved shirt to avoid being eaten alive (literally, it seems to me) by the bugs is DOUBLE the insult! But no gardening work, no wonderful meals from said garden. (Besides, we must remember sweating is a great cleansing tool. Don’t we all look cleansed?)
Think of all the toxins that left your bodies from all that sweating! Your bodies are now as pure as the driven snow! (Or something like that. I would turn this into permission to drink wine, that’s all I know.)
Our kitty just got his yearly haircut, too. I call him Tubby Cat because he weighs about 19lbs, and now you can really see the rolls of fat. He’s acting all humiliated and sad – he’s hiding under the bed.
I am feeling happy for those sheep, and happy for your enjoyment of you dinner. But the pictures of Pumpkin made me the happiest.
Oh if only you could have waited a few more days for shearing–today (Monday) would have been perfect! But it’s still a good job done!
Stacking hay and gardening in the heat and 19 pound cats…. You people live frightening lives.