Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 1 9 30 Huddling together in the barnyard nearby, naked, white-skinned, and nicked, are several dozen poodle-sized sheep. I hear the buzz of the shearing tools begin and proceed to the dark, cool barn where, over the noise, I introduce myself to a stout, gray-haired woman in overalls who I assume is Campbell. ree men—two Peruvians and one Montanan, I learn later—each bend over a pregnant ewe, wedged on her backside between his legs. eir little tummies straddled, the sheep stare ahead unblinking and don't flinch. Most large ranches in the West employ shearers and shepherds from Peru or Chile, whose ancestors learned their trade from Spanish Basques. It is estimated that about fifteen hundred shepherds spend the winter in the American West, working on guest visas, flying back home, as these two do, a couple times a year. Like much agricultural work in America, sheepherding has become an immigrant's job—low paying, dirty, physically demanding. Denis, who has been working for Camp- bell for sixteen years, is fast and expert, shaving the fleece so that it falls all in one piece, the ewe barely moving until he lets her go and she runs out the shoot into the corral with the others. Master shearer, shepherd and advisor, he leans forward over a swing attached to the ceiling, a tool that I imagine saves his back from injury and allows him to shear sheep after sheep for hours without a break. ere are tricks to shear- ing—placing a boot just so next to a sheep's leg to steady her, pressing down on a hip to quiet her—that take years to master. e apprentice leaves a sheep full of small nicks that bleed, but she, too, doesn't grimace and sprints out the door when she is done. By the time evening comes, Campbell says, they will have shorn 136 bred ewes. When a fleece is shorn correctly, it comes off in one piece, remark- ably larger than the small creature now quivering outside without its coat. An expert shearer will also cut out any unusable parts, such as soiled lower leg wool, butt bits, or groin and belly wool. Campbell gath- ers the fleece from the floor and takes it outside. In an expert motion, she unfurls it onto the skirting table, the side closest to the skin down. Skirting is the process of hand-removing stains, cuts, and vegetable matter from the wool before it is ready to sell. Consequently, the skirting table is a frame with an open top across which PVC pipes have been spaced an inch or so apart, allowing the wool debris to fall between them. Because breeding sheep involves producing more and more sheep—it's not an old folks home, sheep breeders are known to say—the ranch naturally has to decide which sheep won't make it to the next year. Some will be sold as lambs for food. For the older ewes, rams, and werthers (castrated males), their meat will be processed by a local butcher and, since, as Campbell says, hardly anyone eats mutton in America, it will be given to the homeless. The lambs are born outside in fenced lots. As soon as they are born the lamb and mother are brought inside the barn to keep them safe and allow them to bond. Shorn lambs and ewe Sieben Ranch Class on processing raw wool into yarn www.distinctlymontana.com/wool194 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL

• Cover