Looking Around

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	Introducing our new Travel Log feature called Looking Around. We are all curious folks and have been saving images and interesting thoughts to share for years! Martha is going to start first because she got pretty far from home this year. All images will tell of things of fiber, color, or texture (and of sheep and other animals of course!)

David very often jokes with me about my sheep list. He says things like, "Some people have their big list of birds they want to see before they...you know, want to see,.... but for Martha it’s sheep and THAT is why we have to go so many places! Its only because they all have sheep!" He has said this so much within my hearing that I began to worry that he was helping me get to all these out of the way places only because of me! Now I know I am spoiled, but can you imagine how I am feeling? So on our last adventure I sat him down and said, "Are you really enjoying this life? This traveling to where sheep are?" And he smiled and said, "You know giving you a hard time makes a good joke but, no, I like it all!" Whew, okay then, got that straight! Gotta check on things every once in a while! “And besides,” I said, "it's never the sheep, it’s the people who keep the sheep that I really want to see."

Let’s meet a few people!

Who's that hugging that sheep and smiling? That's Charlotte, very proud of the hair cut she just gave our "Elizabeth" (half Shetland, half Corriedale). Charlotte has held our farm together the last few times we have traveled and we are very glad and thankful (and lucky) she loves our animals. She is ready to shear a few more sheep so give her a call at the store! 828-835-4592. (And don't forget to feed her a nice meal after the works all done!)

So, we have just come back from another rather sheepy adventure. For someone with my area of interest it was like a masters program in sheep! By way of introduction: We started this summer's adventure off at a wedding in Helsinki, Finland. We met up with our Annie Fain, Geraud and the cutest baby in France, Jules, awww. We were so far north we never went to sleep, as it was very near to midsummer. Geraud said to me "What do the trees do?" (meaning with so much sunlight in the summer). I said, "Well they just get on with it!" They will have to live through a long cold winter as they wait for the next long day.




		After our wedding fun and family visits we went to Stockholm and then on a ferry to the Swedish island called Gotland.The island itself was an important trading stop for the Vikings and everyone else! Most Vikings were farmers and Gotland has very rich land. We have been following their trail for years, and we wanted to be together as a family, and David is half Swedish, did I tell you? And as we were very near....

We stayed in a self-cater apartment in the main town of Visby which is a Northern European Hanseatic town with preserved buildings and walls. The Hanseatic League was a medieval trading alliance between countries around the Baltic Sea. Visby was one of Scandinavia's largest trading ports. They began constructing the walls around 1250 to protect the wealth of the town. Visit gotland.info or World Heritage Site Visby to see more. Luckily we got there before the black flies arrived and the month long Medieval Festival began. Our landlord assured us it would be like Disney Land in a few weeks time. (Lot of thanks to Noel Thurner for telling us about this special place and to David Liden for figuring out how to get us there!)


	We admired the fences we saw all over the island. Very Scandinavian.


	So what about sheep? You said you were going to see sheep! Well yes, there are two kinds of sheep from Gotland. They are mentioned in our newest excellent resource The Fleece and Fiber Source Book by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.

This is not such a good picture of a Gotland but I am here to remind you that it is very hard to get a good picture of a sheep that only wants to run away as quick as it can! We started our people who keep sheep visits at Faro-Lamm. Go to their website to see many more pictures but the words are all in Swedish!
www.farolamm.se

We had a word with Bertil and Anna. I was shy at first but believe me they are ready to talk in the early summer when there are fewer visitors around. Bertil had the better English so he tried to answer my multitude of questions. We discussed everything from parasites to feeding schedule to mixing of breeds to calling

in the 400 ewes. Anna gets in the car and honks the horn. Bertil comes behind with two dogs riding the bike and calling loudly “Ahoo!” He and his wife like the meat and believe that people like to see the face of the shepherd. (But I am sorry to admit here that I did not get any photographs of the face of this shepherd!) He was very proud of the profoundly curly sheepskins with shades from gray to silver to white with very dark gray highlights. Apparently the Russians encouraged the development of the breed and the way the wool grows in looping curls. Read, ready-to-buy, here. The skins are used for coats and hats for the Nordic and Russian market. But, me being me, I asked Bertil if he could tell me anything about what I thought I had heard of as the primitive breed from the island. “Ah! Gute! (Gutefar is the breed of the sheep). If you shear them it is like shearing a pig, all bristles!” But then he told us where we could find some in a Bronze Age burial ground right beside the road. We climbed the stile and hoped they were nice! They, like many sheep, are hired to maintain the land. It was very scrubby, but a place sheep have adapted to. Primitive, double coated, shedding sheep dropped off by the Vikings!

The next day, David and I were driving around in his favorite rental car ever, a 1984 Volvo, and we spotted some more Gutefar on our way to visit the Gotland Spinneri. "Wait! I think I see some of those primitive sheep!" We pulled over and I was crawling around trying to get a good picture through the fence with David's little camera and my minimal skill, when I heard a voice..."Are you looking at the sheep? Would you like to go in with them? Let me just call my husband, Magnus!" There began a wonderful visit that involved touching an old ram, feeling the wool (I could have as much of this hairy stuff as I wanted), seeing their prize sheepskins, and touring the typical old limestone farm house (1790) that the young couple is renovating. When they offered us a cup of coffee I thought, "Well, it must have been a long time since they saw any one!" But, I do the same if anyone acts interested.... And in fact we were just the people who had traveled very far to see sheep! (but it’s never the sheep, I am telling you!)




		We learned that this rare old style breed got down to about forty members and that Magnus’ grandfather and some friends decided it needed to be saved. This was back in the 40's. They are double coated and both the males and females carry horns. They have many shades from black to silver to white to spotted. The rams have hairy "manes". With the development of the breed association, careful records are kept of what ram went to what ewes. The sheep live together in prides males with males, females with females. Winters are cold and long and the pecking order decrees who will have the best shelter. The rams fight at aromatic times during the year. The most amazing thing to hear was that the Gotland breed was developed from the Gutefar. When we looked closely at the skins we could see the round curls right in the middle of the skin....Magnus is a depressed marine biologist studying the health of the Baltic Sea. Lena is a pharmacist who is on leave for the year because of the birth of their first son, Manfrid. Awww, babies! To learn more here is the address for the breed association: www.gutefar.se

This bag, Viking Inspired Motifs in Rare Breed Wools, made mostly from yarns Martha found on her woolly journey plus some handspun, will be on display in the much anticipated member's show of The Southern Highland Craft Guild Black and White 3. Breeds involved: Gotland, Hebridean, Jacob, Wenslydale and Shetland. The show is located at the Folks Art Center's Main Gallery and the display of all styles of members work will run from September 8, 2012-January 6, 2013. (Annie Fain will be displaying a book as well. She finished it just before the baby was born. Awww!)