Shepherding the Full Experience
The Story of Sheep to Kits on my Farm
Each week as I package and prep fiber arts kits to send to my students, I can’t help but feel a bit like Santa Claus, arranging and wrapping the adult version of stockings full of treasures for the learning adventures that will soon begin. I imagine the delight of my students as they open their kits, untie them, and lay out all the colorful objects.
For most of my classes, these treasures include either wool yarn or roving for weaving, stitching, hooking, crocheting, felting, etc. While there are many varied and wonderful wools available today, these are extra special because they come directly from my family farm and our flock of sheep.
Tucked within the boundaries of the Chequamegon National Forest in northern Wisconsin, our farm’s beginnings stretch back to the early 1900’s and the sale of northern lands after the great Cutover, when all the timber was logged and sent south on the rivers or railroads of the era. Government agencies burdened with selling this stubbled landscape touted the area as “prime farmland,” with pamphlets that offered the lure of “seven easy steps for pulling out stumps.” Heh, well…that’s marketing alright.
Mostly, this bargain was snatched up by immigrants, who stayed for one or two generations before abandoning the land. The first homesteaders on what is now our farm came from Vermont. By hand and horses, they cleared the land, built the barn, and worked a subsistence lifestyle augmented by cash crops of potatoes and milk. By the late 1960’s, the next generation had no interest in farming, and the place went up for sale.
At the same time, my maternal grandparents were looking for a Northwoods getaway. With childhood roots on farms in Central Illinois, their lives had changed dramatically with military service and the launching of Grandpa’s family medicine practice in Platteville, WI. Having Northwoods property offered a change of pace, and though the fields were still hayed and a tiny, low maintenance garden tended, the land Up North was mostly left wild. It wasn’t until the summer of 1999 and then full-time in 2000 that my mom, sister, and I decided to move to the farm as part of our Montessori Erdkinder-style homeschooling experience that the story dramatically changed once more.
In the Erdkinder model, students live and work on a diversified farm, using the experience as a living laboratory for their studies, while also gaining entrepreneurial skills. A big part of that journey for us was restoring and revitalizing the homestead with a sustainability emphasis. There hadn’t been farm animals on the property since the 1940’s, the buildings were in grave need of repair or replacement, and soil fertility was dire. The more we studied, the more we realized that thoughtful use of grazing animals was going to be critical to rebuilding soil health and environmental vitality.
Yet, it almost wasn’t sheep for us. Kara (my sister who is the mammal enthusiast) really, really, REALLY wanted alpacas. So, as a good homeschooling family, alpacas became the spur for a research project. We went to fiber shows and met alpaca farmers and watched shearing demonstrations, we toured alpaca farms, we talked to veterinarians, we read books, and so on. In the end, we learned that, at the time, a female alpaca cost about $2,000, while a female sheep cost $60. Our mother, ever the realist in the family, suggested Kara should start with a couple of sheep to see how she liked having large animals. If that went well and Kara liked it, she could have alpacas.
Truth to be told, just days into introducing the young “Sweet” (ewe lamb) and “Heart” (a whether) to the farm, Kara was in love. It’s been sheep ever since, and we never did get back to those alpacas.
Today, Kara’s herd runs between 120-150 sheep, and much has changed since that first pair. Originally, the breed we raised was Hampshire, which was customary for showing at the county fair for the 4-H kids. These are large meat sheep, and their wool is coarse and wiry—not at all useful for the types of fiber arts I was learning at the time. For years, the sheep journey and the fiber arts journey led separate paths, until Kara began changing the genetics she was introducing to her flock.
First came breeds like Dorset and mixes with classic sheep dairy breeds like East Friesian and Lacone. Kara was branching into sheep dairying, which is now one of the cornerstones of our farm’s operation, with our Sweet’s Dream gelato and several delicious soft cheeses in production. Then Kara opted for the softer-fleeced Finn Sheep, and the hearty and kinky wooled Clun Forest. Lately, her mixes include a predominance for California Red, which is an offshoot of the Old-World Tunis line. This means our flock is a delightful mix of red, white, black, and spotted individuals, each with unique personalities.
As our wool improved and wholesale wool prices tanked, it became increasingly interesting to find ways to utilize this yearly crop from our flock. One season of attempting to wash and card it ourselves proved that some jobs are best delegated to professionals who both know what they’re doing and have the gear for it. We’ve tried several different regional woolen mills, but our current and favorite is Ewetopia Woolen Mill in LaFarge, WI. Kathryn, the mill owner, is also an excellent dye artist, and I love working with her to create the subtle yet saturated tones that are classic of my Erindale palette.
When it’s shearing season, trusty Chris arrives in his pickup truck for the task, slipping into the onesie overalls and special felted shearing booties we’ve sourced just for him. We are careful to avoid the risk of bringing diseases from farm to farm, so Kara meticulously cleans and sanitizes his shears as well before the work begins.
While shearing day is certainly not a sheep’s favorite (they really do despise anything that is not part of their normal routine), they love it when the process is over, immediately running to a nearby post to rub and scritch that itch they’ve been waiting to scratch all winter long. They raise their head and munch the air with their lips in ecstasy. Oh yes, this feels soooooooooooo good.
After shearing, we lay out the fleeces on big tarps and begin sorting and skirting. In a typical year, we process about 800 pounds of raw wool, bagging it up in drum liners by color to then stuff into our cargo van for the long road trip to the mill. We hand pick out as much of the bedding straw as we can, as well as the messy “tags” that can gum up the carding machine. Our exam gloved hands tar up with the greasy lanoline, and we smell right mightily of dirty sheep in the process. Skirting can take days to accomplish, but at last all the wool is packed away, and I’m off making up my lists and color swatches for this year’s processing desires.
Requests include medium and thin yarns for tapestry weaving, thicker yarns for punch needle rug hooking, fine yarns for wool embroidery, and roving for needle felting. It can take a few or several months for the processing to be complete, but the arrival of the vanload of finished goods also feels like Christmas on the farm. Gleefully, I unload the bags of washed skeins or bundles of roving, rich and colorful, ready to be made into beautiful creations.
Shelves of the cozy yarn serve as part of my Zoom classroom background, and my studio is filled with even more shelves and bins and nooks stuffed with yarn. I use a puppy fence to herd one of each of the 38 colors of roving we carry into one corner, to avoid a total takeover of my fiber loft. Back at the farmhouse, a guest bedroom has been completely overtaken with the rest of the roving, as well as full fleece pelts made from our sheep. Everywhere you go on our farm, it’s all about the sheep!
As a class approaches, I begin assembling the materials, balling the yarn, and gathering up the tools and supplies. Some of the wooden tools are also created by family members, such as the beautiful wooden tapestry combs my grandpa makes. Each bundle is tied up with any necessary notes and printed handouts, then packaged off for shipments. Kits for my classes have traveled all over the country, including Alaska and Hawaii, as well as Canada and Sweden. With each kit comes a wooly piece of our farm, infused with our love and dedication for the land and animals in our care.
It’s very akin to how things used to be, long ago, when you made your own materials at home with what you could grow or raise. In many cases, this is a vanishing art, and supplies might come from as far afield as New Zealand or not even be of natural materials at all. Fiber arts are a beautifully tactile experience, and the non-commercial nature of our artisan spun fiber (with the occasional bit of hay or slight inconsistency in thickness) carry the story of life and land into the classroom of today, even as we Zoom into our sessions from each home or studio.
This is a unique and treasured experience to share with my students. Just like the choices we make in what to eat shape the future of the types of agriculture that will survive and thrive, so too do our choices in sourcing materials impact what is able to carry on. I choose local and sustainable, right here in this beautiful corner of the world. Happy creating!
