Red Currants

All of a sudden the first of the summer fruit is ripe. We have red currant bushes in a fruit cage, and others planted in odd spots around the place. Normally the birds strip all of the bushes that are not in the cage, but this year all the bushes are laden. I suppose that means that the harsh winter killed more of the wild birds than we were aware of. Not that you would realise from the singing in the morning.

Time to start making jams and jellies, and crumbles and summer pudding!

Shearing

Now that the weather has warmed up it's time to get the wool off the sheep. Christopher does the shearing himself and does them in batches of 20 to 30.Shearers charge €2 to €2.30 per head, but the fleece is only worth about €1.50, so the price of wool does not even cover the cost of shearing.

Close-up of the handpiece.

Quite a vicious looking piece of equipment, anything that goes between the teeth will be cut. Shearing therefore involves controlling the sheep in such a way that you present a smooth flat surface to the handpiece.

The preferred technique was developed by Godfrey Bowen in the 1950's. Hand piece held in right hand, left hand keeps the skin tight, feet, legs and left arm manoeuvre the sheep around so that the fleece comes off in one piece ready for rolling and packing into the wool bag.
When all goes according to plan I can shear a sheep in roughly 2 minutes. However I was at the Shearing Championships in Portlaoise yesterday and saw Ivan Scott from Donegal shear 10 sheep in 8mins 2sec. He also holds the World Record for shearing 736 lambs in 8 hours. Quite a feat!