It Had to Be Ewe

It wasn’t exactly like Pamplona’s running of the bulls, it was more like the ambling of the sheep Friday morning in Costa Mesa as 100 of them sauntered down Fairview Road on their way to the Orange County Fair and their barber.

A Scottish band of four bagpipers and four drummers led the march while Oak, Joy and Sis--border collies from a San Pasqual training facility in Central California--herded the sheep to the fairgrounds from Orange Coast College.

There was a slight sheep-jam as the flock, including a dozen dyed hot pink, took a pit stop off Merrimac Way to graze, but Randy Helms used the extra time to collect himself.

Dressed in skintight pants, a pair of moccasins and a tank top, Helms sat on a stage erected at the fair’s arena, loosening up before greeting his first customer.

Helms, 40, has been shearing sheep for half his life, becoming so proficient that he can shear blindfolded. But he will perform the trick only under certain circumstances.

“Accidents happen when I can see,” Helms said. “I know the anatomy real well, but I will only [shear blindfolded] if the sheep is perfect,” free of bumps.

He wasn’t blindfolded for his first act Friday, but he said he might be today.

On stage, Helms flipped the first sheep onto its back and held it down with his knees. As his left hand smoothed the sheep’s skin, he quickly clipped the animal with his right hand, shearing a steady stream of wool.

The crowd of children and adults oohed and aahed at first, believing he was injuring the sheep to get it to the stage floor. But Helms said he was using pressure points to ensure the sheep would not pop free and injure itself or him.

In less than a minute, Helms was done, and the sheep jumped up and “baa-ed” off to its mother.

Helms is considered one of the best shearers in the world. He just returned from the world championship of sheep shearing in Ireland, where he sheared 513 lamb in nine hours and helped the American team to a sixth-place finish out of 19 teams.

Like most sheep owners in Solano County, where close to 15,000 sheep graze, Jeanne McCormack has hired Helms and his wife, Debbie, a classer who sorts wool by quality, for the past seven years to shear and sort wool from 1,000 sheep she owns at her McCormack Ranch Lamb in Rio Vista.

“He’s fast, careful and knows a lot about wool,” McCormack said. “Before I hired Randy and his wife, I used to have all the wool stuffed into a basket. Now we get paid more for it because we sort it out, and Randy has shown me how to take care of it.”

McCormack said she has seen sheep die from shearing accidents but said that Helms takes care not to hurt the sheep.

Helms, who lives in Myrtle Point, Ore., with his wife and their two children, travels the West Coast in a 36-foot trailer from which he does the shearing. He often wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and will shear 100 sheep before the first ray of light.

“It is hard having your tea and toast, then going out to shear,” Helms said. “But I love it. I can’t imagine sitting in an office all day.”

As a student at Foothill High School in Santa Ana, Helms never imagined life would be like this. After he graduated in 1976, he went to college for a little while and realized he needed more freedom.

For a few years Helms rode a tractor on a farm, bailed hay at Los Alamitos Racetrack and worked as a welder. Then he saw some people shearing sheep and took a dare to try it.

The dare has led to a career that has taken him around the globe. It hasn’t made him rich, he said, but he would not trade the experience for anything.

“My kids can watch cricket or rugby on TV and know what’s going on,” Helms said. “They know about the world around them.”

The shearing life has taken its toll on his body. Despite his wrestler’s physique, Helms has had his hands stitched from wounds and has developed a sore back and aching joints. But he loves the sheep.

“Some day I would like to have a farm with a couple hundred sheep,” Helms said. “The only people who think sheep are dumb are people who can’t outsmart them.”