I’m a city gal, born and bred. I didn’t grow up on a farm, so farming, farm animals, and country life are somewhat fascinating and foreign to me.
This is why I’ve had a lot of fun visiting farms and talking to farmers recently while writing a cover story for Pittsburgh Parent. I had another interesting farm-related experience on Sunday when I visited the Oliver Miller Homestead in South Park for its “Fiber, Fabric and Fashion” event. The highlight of this event was to watch a man shear a sheep using what looked like giant scissors, which I presume is close to what the 18th century Miller family must have used.
I had never met a real sheep face to face, so no matter how many times I have heard the phrase “meek as a lamb,” I never understood what it meant until I saw that fluffy brown sheep being shorn of its wool. Before the shearing, that sheep was baaing, bleating and complaining to be let out of its pen. So when the man with the shears opened the pen, I half expected the sheep to gambol and prance about to celebrate its release from behind bars. Instead, the creature immediately bent to the will of the shearer. With barely any effort, the shearer laid the sheep down without any fight or fuss whatsoever. That sheep did not even utter a bleat as it lay limp and docile for the next half hour or so while it lost its thick wool coat.
As the man expertly sheared, exposing the sheep’s naked skin underneath, he built up a pile of dirty, raggedy wool, which was even more dirty because through the whole process the sheep kept popping out round, black, sheep turds, which were forming its own little pile next to the wool.
Now, if I had a job where I had to work in close proximity to sheep “ship” like that, I’d be running to the hills or the unemployment line. It was gross. But I shouldn’t have been surprised that the shearer didn’t seem to notice or care that his un-gloved fingers occasionally grazed the dirty pile – and I don’t mean the wool pile.
It was quite an interesting endeavor, as evidenced by the serious expressions of amazement on the faces of the children and adults who had gathered to watch. The process fascinated me, too, and when I saw the looms and spinners in the Miller house, I certainly appreciated how important the wool must have been to the pioneers who settled here several centuries ago.
I also wondered how much easier it must be to extract wool in this day and age with the benefit of modern technology and electric shears.
I may not have been raised on a farm, but I’m pretty certain of one thing: unless someone can convince me that sheep can be housetrained, I think sheep shearing will always be a “shippy” business.