A world record
Photo from the Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
I really do want this blog to be more than a running commentary on news that is readily available elsewhere. First of all, too much of the news is political and I’m no expert at politics. Secondly, much of news is not aimed at really telling the news at all, but rather at selling advertising. What is reported, especially in US media, is a lot of sensationalism with a whole lot of marketing thrown in. I really don’t want this blog to be about selling anything. I intentionally don’t pay attention to the analytics about where my blog posts show up in internet polls, how many people visit the site, who lingers, etc. I write because I have a need to write. I write to figure out where I fit in this world. I write as a spiritual discipline. And I am glad that there are a few people who read what I write.
I’m a pastor who does some writing on the side, not a writer who does some preaching on the side.
Having said that, occasionally there is something in the news that stirs my imagination. And sometimes these stories are things that didn’t get much media attention, so I’m not sure that my readers have discovered the stories. So, here goes a bit of commentary on today’s news.
It is early spring in Australia. Most of the country has made it through the worst of the winter weather and temperatures are beginning to heat up. In general Australia is a bit more temperate than the United States, so winters are a bit less severe and the difference between summer and winter is a bit less dramatic than we experience. But Australia is a big country and there is a lot of variation from the stormy southern coast of Tasmania and Victoria visited by penguins, to the tropical north.
Of course spring is the season when a young man’s mind turns of course to . . . sheering sheep.
And yesterday, in Australia, a world record was set for sheering a sheep. More than 88 pounds of wool was harvested in a single shearing of a single sheep. Ian Elkins, the Australian national shearing champion was called in urgently to tackle the giant merino which was discovered by a drover after having wandered in the wilderness for several years.
To put that mountain of wool in perspective, where I come from (Big Timber, “The Wool Shipping Capitol of Montana”) an eight pound fleece is about average. 8.8 pounds is considered to be very good. The Australian monster fleece was ten times that amount. I’m not sure but I think that the record for my home county is somewhere in the 20 pound range.
88 pounds of wool from a single sheep. That news caught my attention. I don’t think, however, that it was reported on Fox News, though there has been some speculation on the amount of hair on Donald Trump’s head on that channel. I don’t watch TV, so my facts may be a bit distorted from secondhand reporting.
His name is Chris: the sheep not the Presidential candidate. His fleece was so overgrown that he had to be sedated for his haircut. I don’t think they generally do that for Presidential candidates. Anyway Chris the sheep was sedated. Even with him lying still for the procedure there were a couple of clipper nicks that had to be treated with antibiotics. And, during a careful veterinary examination following the shearing, it was discovered that his hooves were damaged by having to deal with the excessive weight for so long. The procedure was like a very radical diet. More than half of the sheep’s weight was removed in the shearing. Animal welfare officials estimate that Chris was “four to five times its normal size” before the shearing.
Australians, normally competitive souls to begin with, are said to be cheering now that they have recovered the world record from their New Zealand neighbors. The previous world record for a single fleece was a 60 pound fleece shorn in 2004 from Shrek, an animal who had been found after six years on the loose. Like Chris, Shrek was a merino. Unlike Chris, Shrek’s shearing was broadcast on national television in New Zealand.
As I said, I don’t watch television, but I might consider doing so if our television stations broadcast exciting events such as sheep shearing. I’m not planning to hold my breath while I wait.
Our local newspaper’s web site is filled with stories about changes in the demographics of American and especially South Dakota families today. As we expected there is a tendency toward larger families with more children. The print edition has a front page article about Robbinsdale Park and another about a proposed hike in property tax rates (something I pay attention to now that we’ve ben annexed into the city). There is a well-done article about Monsignor O’Connell that I think is front page news. I guess those articles news, though there isn’t much that I didn’t already know in the stories. Somehow the editors of the Rapid City Journal thought those stories were more interesting than a sheep with an 88 pound fleece. One has to wonder about their priorities when selecting front page stories.
I suppose that is why I still have a few readers of this blog. They turn to it for stories that aren’t as heavily reported by television and newspapers. Or maybe they’re just fascinated by the rambling essays of a mind that seems to work a bit differently than the typical consumer of world news.
All of this got me to thinking. I’ve already noticed that when I get my hair and beard trimmed I get comments from people in the church. Sometimes I’ll let it get a bit long, perhaps waiting six weeks between serious trimmings. My beard grows faster than my hair and I’m not producing much hair on top at all these days. I’ve become more adept, in my sixties, at growing eyebrows than was the case earlier in my life. At any rate, when my beard has been long and I get it trimmed, I’m likely to have someone comment to me at church, “Have you been losing weight, pastor?” I take it as a compliment and go on.
It just got me to thinking . . . what if I really grew out my hair until the amount taken off actually did constitute a measurable weight loss?
It’s probably not a good diet plan for me. I don’t think I could produce eight pounds of hair and I know there’s no market for it if I did. I guess I’ll leave the wool production to the sheep. Keep reading my blog, who knows when the world record will next fall. You’ll be able to read about it here.