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Bryce Skilling brings a sheep out of a flock to be sheared in the barn at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester. The Shaker farm has 73 sheep who get shorn once a year.
Bryce Skilling holds on to a sheep that is next to be shorn as Jeff Burchstead shears a sheep in the foreground in the barn at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.
Jeff Burchstead uses power clippers to shear a sheep while holding back its head and ears.
In addition to shearing sheep at various farms, Jeff Burchstead runs Buckwheat Blossom Farm in Wiscasset, where he raises his own sheep and grows vegetables.
Steve O’Connor, left, and Jami Ribisi-Braley hold up a fleece that was just shorn off a sheep in the barn at the Sabbthday Lake Shaker Village. O’Connor, from New York, has been visiting Shaker Village for 36 years and Ribisi-Braley is the office manager for the Shakers.
Brother Arnold scratches Two Spot, a 4-year-old ram, after it had been shorn. Brother Arnold said the shearing can make the sheep’s skin itchy and Two Spot, who always seeks attention from people at the farm, had come to him for scratches.
Jeff Burchstead shears a dark-fleeced sheep in the barn at Shaker Village. It took Burchstead most of the day to shear the farm’s 73 sheep.
A newly shorn sheep walks through the barn while sheep still waiting to be shorn watch it pass by.
Chris Cannella of Rockland gathers up her wool at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. Cannella was participating in a workshop about how to wash, skirt and prepare a freshly-shorn fleece, which was held in conjunction with the sheep shearing.
Sheep herd together in the barn at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester. The sheep are herded tightly together before being shorn because it increases their body temperature, causing them to sweat a little and make it easier to sheer their fleece.
A docile sheep sits while Jeff Burchstead shears it in the barn after a lunch break.
Brother Arnold scratches the backs of two freshly-shorn sheep outside of the barn at SabbathDay Shaker Village. The Shaker Village was established in 1783 and is the only active Shaker community in the world.

Gregory got his start in journalism delivering his hometown newspaper, the Norwich Bulletin, as a teenager, reading the front page articles on dark winter mornings as he passed under streetlights. Greg...

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