The last 8 days have been very productive. All the goats and llamas and alpacas have been sheared! And I didn't have to do it. Yes! Soft and fluffy to begin with but sleek and scrawny afterwords.
Spring shearing is bigger than fall shearing. The goats, all four of them, get sheared twice a year - spring and fall. I've done this myself for as long as I've owned goats, although I started off poorly. The first time It took me several hours per goat and I only had the stamina to do one a day. Even with as few goats as I have, it took me a week or more to get them all sheared. And they all looked like a four year old had gotten a hold of the scissors. I'm sure they went back to their shelter and laughed at each other's hair cut. And probably laughed at me. But I've gotten better over the years. I still only do one a day but even the worst of them only takes me an hour now and they actually look pretty good. And Bernadette, who has wavy hair instead of curly dreadlocks, only takes me about 20 minutes.
A number of years ago we were lucky enough to travel to Australia and New Zealand. I could go on and on about how lovely and different the two countries were. New Zealand really is Middle Earth and Australia is as vast and changing as our own country. I would go back to Australia and New Zealand in a heartbeat if given the chance.