Tis’ the season! Expecting temps to dip into single digits this week, so I guess it’s time to latch the windows.
Fortunately, WE HAVE FINALLY PUT THE NEW MERMAID NAPPERS ONLINE, just in time for that looong winter’s nap. At 50×70, these are a perfect gift for all ages and genders, EVERY chair or cozy corner, YOUR side of the bed, car, dog… covers MOST toes, and as I sadly discovered with my folks, GREAT for dialysis patients or hospice beds. Also makes a perfect wedding (or divorce) gift. Fulled and napped, they are SEACOLOR dyed (by me) with choice of three natural backgrounds, machine washable (gentle cycle/gentle soap/hang to dry), and the ONLY blanket made with MAINE wool. Lots of colors to choose from now . . . LASTS A LIFETIME, or more!
FOR GRATITUDE I am offering a COUPON on BLANKETS, including the Herringbone, for FREE SHIPPING through 2025!
Please feel free to share coupon BFS25.
AND YES WE CAN DO EMBROIDERY. By hand, in any color of choice, EXPERTLY rendered by Laurie Sims.
Been a busy scramble here doing winter prep. The ladies are finishing up “tupping” season (breeding: due to drop late march into April). Did 57 Laparoscopic AI with imported POLWARTH genetics imported from New Zealand on adult “proven” ewes with Tufts Veterinary Field Service on Oct. 29, so the BIG WEEK will be March 21-29 and might be a fun time (or after) to book into the beautiful Cuckoo’s Nest AirBnB. Book soon for early discounts.
There is still an opening for a month long “Sheep Doula” intensive for ONE person to take a deep dive and get down and dirty. Hoping this will start with SHEARING, so there will be LOTS to learn about skirting and sorting and grading and record keeping on these beautiful fleeces. Yearlings will drop second half of April, with a breather for FUN (and sleep) and a chance to do some fiber work if you’re interested, trim hooves, learn to deliver prophylactic and critical husbandry, or something else sheepish that trips your trigger.
The wood is stacked and the fields are “dressed,” always forward, never straight. Water lines to pasture and dye zone are drained, hatches are battened. Critters are nibbling the last of grass, while “bale grazing” for supplement on the best local hay I could find, leaving any remainder to feed the soil on hummocks and add seed bank on bare patches.
Dressing with the composted bedding pack, where carbon is captured and nitrogen will be stable (not oxidize), feeds roots and microbial life, while storing carbon in a safe way that makes for MORE greenhouse gas drawdown come summer and retaining moisture in the soil. These are some of the strategies that earned MEADOWCROFT the Conservation Farm of the Year in 2025. This is the super power of sheep, light one the land, with less compaction than larger animals, for more active and healthier soils.
There are still a few YARNS online and the next plan is to make FREE PATTERNS available for download with sufficient yarn purchase. Thank you Cecile the Web Diva for getting all this going again!
As always GIFT CARDS are available for your favorite knitter or napper.
If it’s sweaters you seek… I will be hanging them again in the FiberShed for your visit by appointment, and there is even still time to special order (in person only). Several SALE blankets, authentically flawed (like a skipped warp thread or smudge that would sponge out, but I’m too lazy…) for a deep discount. Alas, it is getting too cold to leave the plumbing running in the barn “comfort station,” so that’s a thing.
If NONE of this is interesting, and if you have it in your heart to help support the cause, are concerned about carbon drawdown, and/or want to heal the planet with WOOL POWER… Where the drought has kicked us in the proverbial bum, I am now needing to buy Western Alfalfa to make sure the critters stay healthy and well nourished thru winter… Crazy, stupid expensive. Here is your LINK.
I can’t leave without expressing my deepest gratitude to all of you who have helped “close the loop” as key supporters of this life well lived, from the bottom of our hearts, two and four leggeds included.
THANK YOU. Till we meet again!
~Nanne
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