Meridian Jacobs Shearing Day
By Lee Bergman, Del Oro Spinners and Weavers Guild
All photos courtesy Robin Lynde
Figure 1 Meridian Jacob lambs
On January 29, 2022, Robin Lynde invited a friend and me to attend the sheep shearing at Meridian Jacobs. It was quite an honor as few outside the Farm Club were allowed to attend. Our goal was to buy a fleece or two to use in the upcoming Lambtown sheep to shawl competition. When we got there the shearing was well under way. The sheep were in and out of the shearing pen so fast it made my head spin. I believe 80 sheep were shorn in five hours (that’s about four minutes per sheep!). It was nothing like those shearing demonstrations you see at your local county fairs.
John, the shearer, was amazing. He had no problem handling the gorgeous ram that had significant attitude and an impressive set of characteristic Jacob horns. There was one other sheep that challenged John even more, a wether named Rocky. Weighing in at around 275 pounds, he was having none of it. Despite Rocky’s efforts to be as uncooperative as possible, John quickly got the upper hand and I came home with Rocky’s beautiful lilac fleece.
Figure 2 Meridian Jacobs
After the shearing was done it was time to pick a fleece for our sheep to shawl competition but looking at the room full of fleeces it was hard to know where to begin. Fortunately, Robin and the Farm Club members were very helpful. We told them what we were looking for and they suggested a number of fleeces we might be interested in. First problem solved. We took our list to the room full of fleeces and quickly discovered they were in no particular order and the bags were all open. There was no good place to put the bags we had already looked at and the cards in the bags were not always easy to find. After 15 minutes of rummaging through the piles of bags we were finally able to locate the fleeces we were looking for. We spent another few minutes putting the fleeces we weren’t interested in back before heading to the skirting tables. After rolling out several fleeces we found a beautiful brown and white fleece from a one-year-old ewe. Members of the Farm Club helped us skirt it and separate the colors.
Figure 3 Buster and Catalyst, Meridian Jacobs
It was a long but productive day. I learned a lot about the whole process, got to see two lambs just a few hours old (an unexpected event, very stressful for both mom and babies, all recovered and were doing fine when we left).
I can’t thank Robin and the Meridian Jacob Farm Club enough for allowing us to join them. If you have a chance to go to an actual shearing day take it, it was amazing.