One of the things I like best about where I live is the abundance of farm animals all around me - horses, goats, cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens. I can drive five to ten minutes in any direction and find a herd of some kind of animal grazing peacefully in a field in summer or huddled together for warmth in winter. In addition to dairy cows, for which Wisconsin is famous, we have a lot of sheep and other fiber animas - llamas and alpacas in particular - in our area as well.
Many of the sheep raised in Wisconsin are raised for meat, but the number of shepherds who are paying attention to the wool they grow and who are raising sheep specifically for their fiber is increasing steadily. Over the years, I have learned a lot about spinning wool, shearing fleeces, and evaluating wool quality for hand spinners. I also know something about keeping sheep, since I had my own small, spinner's flock in California before moving to Wisconsin. Because I teach workshops for spinners and shepherds on how work with raw fleeces and how to improve their wool and fiber sales, I have the pleasure of going to farms from time to time to help shear sheep or to discuss the qualities of flocks with their shepherds.
This past Saturday found me on the road toward Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, headed past large fields of growing corn and golden wheat and deep green, tree-lined country lanes to Rocky Knoll Ranch, owned by Kirsten and Rick Mortimer. Kirsten and Rick are new shepherds with a small flock of mostly Shetland sheep, and they wanted me to take a look at their fleeces.
When I pulled into the driveway of their historic yellow brick home, I felt immediately at home. I could hear the sheep baaa-ing in the back pasture and see the vegetable garden to one side of the house as Kirsten led the way to the porch where bags of fleeces of many colors were neatly stacked. The three of us - Kirsten, Rick, and I - spent a couple of hours going over the fleeces one at a time, and I found a couple of nice ones that I encouraged her to enter into the fleece show at the upcoming Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.
While we were working with the fleeces, Kirsten and Rick's children, Olivia and Ned, came home from swimming. Both children are learning the art and craft of raising sheep, which is hard work, from their parents. According to Rick and Kirsten, Olivia is a calm hand at going out into the frozen fields of early spring to help at lambing time. Ned is a budding shepherd.
Olivia is also a knitter, and she showed me a great school project she had done - a "dissected" frog made out of knitted wool.
The frog was knitted by Olivia, and the major internal organs were made from felted wool, attached to the knitted frog, and neatly labeled. What a marvelous, and humane way to show the biology of a frog, and so much more creative and nicer to do than the real frogs I had to dissect in high school zoology class! The frog even had little X's embroidered for it's eyes: it was supposed to be "dead" after all.
Of course, no trip to a sheep farm would be complete without a visit to the sheep themselves, so after sorting fleeces, we all trooped off to the fields for a visit with the woolies. Two of Kirsten and Rick's sheep are wethers - neutered males - who were raised as bottle babies, and one in particular, Cream, followed us around like a puppy. Once Cream discovered that I love being around sheep, he would shove his head under my hand or lean his head against my leg until I gave him a scratch. If someone wasn't paying attention to him, he would paw at them like a dog until he got a pat or a hug. His huge, limpid eyes would close in bliss, and he would nuzzle in as close as he could get. Sheep love is wonderful, and Shetland sheep are small and manageable. Granted, I smelled faintly of sheep after all this affection, but I find it to be a rather pleasant smell most of the time, and I didn't mind.
Shetland sheep come in all kinds of colors, from white to brown to grey, to black, and like Icelandic sheep, sometimes a sheep has more than one color. Each of the colors of Shetland sheep has its own Scots Gaelic name. Cream's brother Oreo, shown below, appears to be a yuglet due to his brown face and legs and fawn-colored fleece.
On the way back from the field, we stopped to visit with the chickens: Mr. Manners, the farm's rooster, and his harem of hens. Mr. Manners is well-named, as he is a gentle rooster to his wives and his humans. Some roosters will attack people, but he seemed more interested in posing for a photo. What a handsome fellow!
Rick and Olivia have two gardens full of produce, including some delightful lemon yellow sunflowers growing on the side of the herb garden.
Before I left, they kindly provided me with a bag of kale, some 8-ball zucchini, a large bunch of oregano, and a dozen rich brown eggs. I see a kale frittata in the near future.
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