Skirting Fleeces

On Sunday, Anna and I took advantage of the sunny, windy weather and started skirting our fleeces that were sheared back in May.  Our friend Emilie called and when I told her what we were doing, she said skirting fleeces sounded like fun, and she'd like to watch/help.  This was Emilie's romantic view of skirting (it looks lovely through the garden, doesn't it?)...

before I explained that it was definitely NOT nice or fun, and involved picking out poop and hay from dense wool, and shaking the fleece in the wind to loosen vegetation, dirt and "other stuff," and then picking some more.  It's VERY dirty work and the lanolin in the fleece makes everything stick to you.  Emilie and Joachim came over after we were done skirting.

Here are some photos of our day.  First Michael sets up the skirting table with his best helper, Jumper ( I believe he is part dog)....

The tabletop screen we use is actually an 5 ft x 6 ft section of dog kennel.  This is Amy's beautiful fleece...

And here we are about half way done picking through Miss Fudge's fleece...

It takes at least a couple hours to skirt and pick through each fleece well, but it's important because clean fleeces make better yarn.  We were complimented at the Green Mountain Spinnery for the cleanliness of our fleeces, especially since we don't coat our sheep.  We only got through 2 out of  our 6 fleeces on Sunday.  You can guess what we'll be doing this weekend.  Anyone interested in helping out?  :)