Finally!!!

When the shearers came in May, I had just got Gracie and was afraid to let them touch her. This was after all the first year they actually did what I asked them to do and took their time with my wool. I will let them shear her next year, but that means I wont have much growth on her because I just sheared her today.
This was a few months ago. Today the coat was at its load limit, she had a lot more wool around her face this morning, than either now or then... you literally couldn't see the tag in her ear for the wool. It was past time.
In the fight to get her from the sheep pen to the garage where the sheep stand and shearing tools are, I neglected to take a before picture so this will have to do.
Ok, I gotta make some excuses here, I feel like I have abused her or something (although the resulting really big bag of wool causes me to feel a little giddy) to start with she is a real pain in the ass. Every time you look at her sideways she starts and runs, isn't convinced that just because I haven't jumped on her back and slit her throat yet doesn't mean I wont. Laura calls them 'pin-ball' sheep.
Secondly, Jari is scared of her, and I knew she wouldn't be any help, especially now cause I wont let her. Kevin helped me, he always does when I ask even though he really doesn't appreciate sheep, but he doesn't know how to shear so he can't give me a break when my arm is about to fall off.
Thirdly, it really, really hurts me to shear. My back my arms, my feet...
Really, the only thing that kept me going was the wool that was slowly pealing away from this idiot of a ewe. Which to be honest is the only real reason she is here to start with. Look at that length! Wow!
We had to shear her face before we could put her on the stand, there was no way that chain was going to fit around her head with all that wool!
I was trying to keep at least the blanket in one piece... (omg! My garage is a mess!)
And the after picture. We had just let her go when I realized I hadn't got a picture of her without her wool.
We had a couple of other things to do when we went out to catch her, one was cut the coat off George (the one lying on the ground there). He had had it on for less than two days when he ripped the side out of it. I have new coats coming so what was kept clean will hopefully stay that way until they get here. As we were trying to catch George, miss pin-ball brain here ran close enough up to the fence to snag her coat and rip about an inch worth of canvass off the bottom of one side. It wasn't a bad tear so after we sheared her I went to cut the torn strip off... and cut the leg attachment off. I was tired alright! So now I have to go find someone with a sewing machine to reattach it for me. Hoping it doesn't get too cold in the next few nights for her.
Here is the plunder! It's darker than what it looks here...

I was thinking of putting some of it on Etsy, but oh my! Not sure I want to share now....