Sunday I rooed Blake and Butler; today I sheared and skirted Bing. That makes 11 down and four to go, but since Bing's was the last
reserved fleece, the outside pressure is off. (The inside pressure remains; I want to have
everyone done before June.) Once Vienna, Bogie, Bridget, and Bernadette are sheared, I will advertise on Ravelry again and expect that the ready fleeces will fly out the door.
My gentleman ram Blake has many excellent qualities, which is why he is still here eight years after Brava gave birth to him (and then left him an orphan at five weeks of age). But his roo-able fleece has a heavy grease line at the rise and smells very rammy, so I decided to have his 2017 and 2018 fleeces processed. A fleece client asked me to ship her purchases to Columbia Custom Carding, which she praised highly, so I put Blake's fleeces in the box, too. In a few months I will have some pin-drafted roving available for sale.
Here are the three sheep before and after shearing:
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| Blake's greasy fleece |
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| Lotsa wool left after rooing! |
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| Rooing little man Butler |
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| Lotsa wool left here, too (I scissor-sheared his neck and rump) |
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| Wonderful waves of crimpy wool |
And here are three of my FIVE musket girls thanks to Blake (two daughters and a granddaughter):
On Sunday, Rick finally started prepping our garden space and mowed the half of the middle pasture containing the most foxtail. Now the sheep can safely graze again; the girls approved:
That's it for now from . . .
3 comments:
On a related topic ...
at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival I bought 3 jars of skin cream. One jar was made of various oils, one was made with some lanolin and 'other stuff', and finally one was 100% lanolin. I have terribly dry finger tips (all seasons) and finding just the right hand cream (and using it) has been hard. Of the 3 I bought, the 100% lanolin was the very best. Not a floral scent - hard to describe the scent - but not unpleasant, very thick, hard to work into the skin, almost looks like clean ear wax (the color anyway), thicker than crisco ... so all in all not very appealing to the general customer - BUT the 100% lanolin wins for me HANDS DOWN!!! Helps with the dryness the best, scent fades, after 10 minutes or so the thick tacky feeling on the skin greatly reduces to a totally acceptable level leaving no greasy feel on touch with other things. And it doesn't easily disappear when the hands get wet. Some beading on skin, so I know it is still working. It does wash off with soap, of course. Really, I LOVE the 100% lanolin cream.
AND, I love using it when I knit - I feel like I am not adding anything back into my yarn that wasn't there originally. Ha!
Have you used it?
I haven't used a 100% lanolin product, but HAVE used Corona ointment on animals (30% lanolin) and it works very well. Right now with all the sheep shearing, my hands are on good shape!
I've always wondered what it would take to harvest the lanolin. I would certainly make good use of it!
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