Duane Gallinger is surrounded by a flock of kindergartners. He's got a big, shaggy sheep nestled between his legs and a pair of electric shears in one hand.

He pats the sheep.

"We call this wool. What you have on your head is hair," he says. "Wool is what the sheep produces, what the sheep gives back to us."

For 20 years - this is their retirement - Duane and Cleo Gallinger have been making their living as sheep farmers on their little farm less than a mile from the Nampa Gateway Mall. They raise sheep for meat, for pasture lambs, 4-H-ers and for wool. This is one of the first groups that they've been able to host after a hiatus of several years while Cleo deals with cancer. But they've determined their farm is to share.

"We need you to learn about agriculture and support farmers," Gallinger tells the kids.

He starts to shear with the confidence of a lifetime of experience while the students watch. They're city kids, most of whom have never been to a farm.

"This is awesome," says parent Kristina Henderson, who accompanied Whitney Elementary School kindergartners on their hour-long visit. "It shows kids how they can make a living in other ways than being, say, a teacher or a fireman. It shows how people live off the land."

When Gallinger is done, Cleo takes over. Under a canopy set up in the grass, she shows them how to card and comb. "They grow wool every year. Mr. Gallinger shears it off. It's a special gift that they have."

She keeps their attention when she sits at her spinning wheel with a basket of colorfully dyed wool.

"Now we're going to spin the rainbow," she says.

A tuft of red fuzz turns into yarn on her wheel, followed by orange, yellow, greens and indigo.

"This is going to be cool," says one student, sitting close.

She fields questions (How do sheep grow wool? Does it hurt to be sheared? Where do you get sheep?) before the kids head toward the real fun: the newly born lambs.

"I want to stay with it," says 6-year-old Fatuma Christelle, staggering under the weight of a 2-day-old Angora goat. "They're cute. They feel great." She'd only seen lambs on television.

GRATEFULNESS

After the kids leave, their shouts and laughter seem to linger in the farm quiet. The Gallingers are tired - and grateful.

Years ago, they would entertain hundreds of kids both mornings and afternoons for weeks in a row. Because this group is the first since Cleo was diagnosed with cancer, it is significant. "I'm not sick. I feel so wonderful. I feel elated," she says.

Three years ago, Cleo found out she had ovarian cancer, stage III; it had taken a year to find out why she was feeling so poorly.

As a nurse, "I'd seen it all," she says. "But I didn't know anything about cancer." She was in chemo for a year and a half, but cancer returned in her liver in January.

"Ovarian is a hidden cancer. By the time you get to it, it's too late," she says. She's launched a one-woman crusade to teach about ovarian cancer.

Her prognosis is good right now. "At the moment, I'm cancer-free." She goes back for lab work and scans in three months.

The kids and the sheep are good medicine. "I am so happy I'm doing it. Life is good. You have to enjoy every minute of it."

NICHE MARKET

Cleo's enthusiasm for sheep is contagious. "There's the satisfaction of being able to do it and share it. I can't say enough about sharing it."

"I love fiber, I love sheep," she says. "It's the love. Look at Duane - 78 years old and still shearing sheep."

And Cleo, 66, living with cancer and still spinning, weaving and dying wool and sharing her farm.

When the Gallingers started their "second life" as sheep farmers, Duane teased Cleo into trying her hand using the wool they produced. "I didn't know much about the wool part," Cleo says. "I blundered through everything."

She taught herself to spin and insisted on one thing: "I said, 'If I'm going to do this, I want color.' So we have color."

Their flock includes Angora and merino wool; brown, black and white; and a half-dozen breeds of sheep, for wool, meat and breeding.

Converting her nursing skills to teaching, Cleo holds spinning, weaving and cooking-with-lamb classes.

They built a shop for her classes and converted a porch into a little sales room for handmade items - such as her feisty little wooly sheep (the colors of the rainbow) and felt balls - plus all things wool, including hats, blankets and fleece, and a freezer of meat.

"I have the satisfaction of doing things I love. Creating all this - I can't believe I can make all this. How beautiful is that?"

Katherine Jones: 377-6414