We finally figured out that when we want to get in touch with our new shearer, Liz Willis, we have to email her, not call her.
The mailbox on her phone is always full, but she returns an email within the day.
So Liz will be coming to shear the sheep sometime in April. She’ll get in touch with some of her other customers in our area and visit a few different farms in one day. I doesn’t make sense for her to make a trip to just our farm to shear ten sheep.
It’s earlier than we usually have them shorn, but the sheep are ready.
I didn’t shear Zelda, Socks, Griselle and Biddy in the fall, because they were shorn in late June so their wool wasn’t long enough in October. But now they have a full coat. And Suzy, Rosemary, Liam, Kim, Izzy and Pumpkin’s wool grows so fast and thick, theirs will be ready in another month.
Once again, I’ll keep some of the wool natural and dye some. I’m also thinking of combining some of the white wool with one of the darker colors to make a barber pole yarn (looks just like what it sounds like).
I’m on a schedule with the Vermont Fiber Mill, so even though I’ll have the sheep shorn early, it won’t be processed until July.
That means the next batch of Bedlam Farm wool will be available sometime in the fall. I know that’s two whole seasons away and I don’t want to be thinking about the fall when it just turned spring, but that’s the nature of the farm.
