If you are of the boreal born, and are of the north of the hemisphere, as I am, then you and sheep go back a long way. Sheep are anchor to our days of transhumance, and came with us as we took to farming and tilling. Sheep are the linchpin in my small farm’s constant conversion of feed to manure to food, single-hoovedly sparing us being in thrall to the fertilizer industry. They and the pastures have sympatico, provided you give them the chance to move on every week or so.
As I write this we’re digging ourselves out of another proverbial spring blizzard, which is this year cruelly timed with lambing. So every sleepless night it is touch and go, as we try to coax the ewes to throw their young in the new old barn, it’s first year of housing new life. A black newborn we found in the snow last night, and are at this moment doctoring and willing its little life onward. Sheep anchor you to frailty, too.
And they are a four-hooved sustainability lesson, granting us the means to warm ourselves, by way of their wool – while they live on. We are shifting course from having many in-person events on the farm to farm apprenticeships, and – never saw this coming – to selling our hand-sheared wool. I’ve been hearing the click-click of knitting needles around the place, and the knitters tell me that it’s fine stuff indeed.
So, consider buying a bit of that old story, skein by skein.
Stephen Jenkinson
Founder of Orphan Wisdom
2ply – 100g. (600 ypp) skein of 100% Marvellous Milkers Wool (British & East Friesen mix) = (colour: all a rich cream colour): $26 per skein
and
2 ply – 100g. (600 ypp) skein of 100% Corriedale Super Soft Wool (Corriedale in the luscious Merino/Lincoln Longwool sheep family) = colours: deep chocolate Brown or rich cream): $28 per skein
Note: Does not include shipping.
Please write to orders@orphanwisdom.com to buy a skein.
A group of flying geese is called a skein, characterised by the streamlined ‘v’ shape, the orderly lines rippling as geese change positions. A long piece of wool is also called a skein
