A Wooly Field Trip

Sunday, I took the three kids on a little field trip. We loaded up the car full of snacks, water, a well stocked diaper bag and left Scott at home to figure out how to untangle our new drip tubing in relative peace. We drove over to the next town over, Petaluma, to visit Windrush Farms (check out that link!), a sheep farm. They were inviting folks over for Shearing Day. I’ve bought a small handful of skeins of wool from Mimi at Farmers Markets over the years and was so eager to see her farm. We walked into their barnyard courtyard and were greeted by women spinning yarn on drop spindles and picking over freshly sheared fleeces on wire racks. All were either wearing a beautiful hand knit sweater or hat.

It was pretty amazing watching this man work. He gracefully tossed 200lb sheep onto their backs with the greatest of ease to shear them. It reminded me of a book I recently finished: The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

Though I don’t talk about it much here, knitting is a big passion of mine. I always have something on the needles (my ravelry link) and I’ve gotten to a point in my knitting where I’ve made enough things to notice that some wool pills more than others. Some are scratchier than others, some worsted wools are lighter than others, some feel like they’d keep you warm through an arctic storm. This curiosity has had me wondering about what the difference is between wools.

Of course it wasn’t nearly the educational experience it could have been with three kids in tow, but we all had a great time.

(would you look at that pizza oven?!?)

You’ll have to excuse me now, I have some knitting to do!

(scarf knit from marigold dyed yarn from Windrush Farm’s wool, many years ago)