Growing Wool ...

Wild Rose Farm Ewes At Feeders

Growing and shearing a quality crop of wool takes some effort. Standing there dead center in the picture above is one of the sheep that seems to have a natural talent for finding any burdocks or cockleburs in the pasture! It's an ongoing battle to find and remove the plants before they set seed, but a few plants are all it takes …

Here She Comes … Burrs & All!

The best thing we can say is that burrs & vegetable matter on the head & legs will be sheared off as scrap wool & tags, lol.  Properly skirting a hand-spinning fleece means that any of this will never make it to the spinner, or to the mill if we're having yarn or combed top made for sale. Speaking of wool for sale, we're waiting for a shipment of our wool pencil roving to arrive any day now!
We'll have it in time for our next show in November.

Snow White - "You say there's wool pencil roving coming?"

Unusual Visitors To The Show!

Abe & Mary Todd Lincoln Stopped By & Visited Wild Rose Farm!

We had a great weekend at Pioneer Craft Days and got to meet lots of interesting folks. Everyone was surprised to see Honest Abe & Mary Todd with her parasol strolling the grounds on Sunday!
The kids (and their parents) were flocking around for selfies. After they all took a picture, Abe gave each child a "picture" of himself … a bright shiny new penny fresh out of a roll from the mint. The kids were delighted!  They had to be roasting under those costumes. Temperatures were in the mid-80's and it was humid …

Some of the Outdoor Vendors - Beautiful Setting!

Wild Rose Farm @ Pioneer Craft Days!

Wild Rose Farm - Set-up For Pioneer Craft Days October 6th & 7th!

Here's a chance to come see Wild Rose Farm this weekend at Beaver Creek State Park and enjoy Pioneer Craft Days!  Follow the signs to the Pioneer Village. We are set up in the middle of the covered bridge & I expect to see a vendor on either side of our booth by Saturday morning. We just got a shipment of our Dorset wool quilt batts in September … we have Queen, Full, and now, by request, a new Lap size at 45"x72". Stop in and see us and all of the other hand-made craft vendors!

Coverlet & Blanket

We're also allowed to offer up to 20% real antiques at the show ("no flea market items"!). The persimmon & white antique coverlet will be for sale. Provenance is Sewickley, PA. I'm keeping the Welsh wool double woven green multi queen blanket for myself, lol …

Snow White, Ewes, & Garden Sunflowers

Finally, a look around at the farm! We've had downpours of rain on and off over the last couple of weeks. In the picture above, the garden sunflowers are in full bloom and they're top heavy.

Wet Ewes & Garden Sunflowers AFTER Storms

A week or so later, the sunflowers were decimated by the rains. We've pulled the electric net fence around the garden and interestingly, the sheep munched on the remnants of the sunflower heads. They also grazed off the parsley & nibbled the basil ...