Another year, another pile of wool

Sheared the ram today.  He's harder to shear than our ewe.  She's older and quite used to it, so she just lies there quietly, while this is only the second time he's ever been sheared, so he occasionally freaks out and tries to jump up.  Not good when you're trying to trim around his face.

It's a bit harder this year since we don't have the dog sofa to lay them down, so we had to lay the ram down on the dog beds which are just a few inches off the ground.  This meant I had to kneel down or bend over the whole time.  My back is killing me now.  And we still have the ewe to sheer.  But not tonight.

It also didn't help that the shears kept falling apart.  I don't know how I managed to keep them together last year, but I had really bad luck this year.  I finally figured out that the adjustment dial had to be set juuuuuust riiiiiight, just a bit too tight and the motor would overheat and stall, just a bit too loose and parts would start flying.

And once again, there's a whole sheep's worth of wool on the floor, and the ram looks totally different and much skinnier.  He should be feeling nice and cool now.

Star Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock 1969

This is some of the greatest guitar work of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tsYe4hdONY

Kissing gerbils

"For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil."

--2010 Winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.