TOLNA (AP) - Steven Ostlie isn't sheepish about giving his clients buzz cuts. With swift, long strokes, he turns fleecy coats into wool blankets.

Ostlie is a sheep barber year-round, but January through May are his busiest months, shearing as many as 127 ewes and rams per day. As the number of flocks across eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota declines, the number of sheep the Northwood farmer shears climbs.

With fewer sheep on area farms, fewer people are interested in learning the art of shearing. North Dakota State University in Fargo, where Ostlie years ago learned shearing at a two-day school, no longer offers the course because of lack of demand for it. Young people interested in learning the trade must travel to South Dakota State University in Brookings.

Ostlie, 47, who started shearing his family's sheep in high school, has done it as a business for about 10 years. He steadily built up his clientele, last year shearing about 5,000 sheep on farms from Tuttle to Bemidji, Minn., and from near the Canadian border to South Dakota.

So far this year, Ostlie has sheared about 1,500 sheep and hopes to eclipse last year's shearing record.

Paul and Krysti Bjorlie, who own a flock of about 160 Suffolk and crossbred sheep near Tolna, heard about Ostlie from a neighbor. The couple were getting their sheep sheared in preparation for lambing that began mid-March.

"This is his third year now with us," Krysti said on a March day, watching Ostlie.

It's difficult to find shearers, especially those that do as good of a job as Ostlie, Krysti said. Although the veteran shearer makes the job look easy, it is hard work.

"If you have to wrestle the sheep, flip them over and shear them, it's tough on people's backs," said Roger Haugen, a North Dakota State University Extension Service sheep specialist.

There's an art to shearing, he said.

"Two things: You need to learn how to shear the sheep to get off the wool in one piece. You need to use the pressure points so the sheep doesn't squirm," Haugen said. "If you're very good, there's hardly any stress at all on the sheep. If you have them flipped over for a long time, it's hard on the sheep."

It takes Ostlie only about five minutes to shear each sheep, from the time he "flips" it until the ewe or ram ambles away, leaving a blanket of wool behind.

"You get them riled up and it makes the job harder," said Krysti. "He's really good with them."

While he's shearing, Ostlie is oblivious to the voices of children, bleating sheep, crying lambs and the whir of the clipper blades.

"It's a nice peaceful thing to do," he said, running his shears over the back of a ewe. "I kind of block out everything else."

Ostlie gets paid about $3 per sheep, depending on the size of the flock and how far he travels to shear. He sometimes gets 25 cents to 60 cents per pound for the wool he shears.

"A lot of owners of smaller flocks sell to me," Ostlie said. They do not want the hassle of marketing a small amount of wool, he said.

Ostlie sells the wool he buys through the Valley Wool Growers Association in Page. Each spring, about 35 farmers take their wool to Page, where it's purchased by East Coast buyers.

The quality of the wool and type of sheep from which it was sheared dictates the price. White-faced wool, which is finer, fetches a higher price, said Ostlie's brother, Jim, a Northwood farmer and sheep producer who is president of Valley Wool Growers Association.

Wool prices, while not as high as the $1- to $1.50-per-pound peaks, are better than they were a few years ago, Jim said.

"Three or four years ago, farmers would shear the sheep and just bury the wool because it was worth less than 10 cents," he said.