Kristen works hard at a 9-5 job, comes home and works her second job caring for her animals; Angora and Cashmere goats, Finn and Shetland sheep, Leah the guard llama (Astrid will join her soon), new piebald bottle babies, the kitties Fred and Ginger and her constant companions pups Max and young Rufus.
She has a loyal group of fans (I am definitely one of those) who follow her ups and downs through her Ravelry group devoted to the Gilead. We hear about worm and parasite issues, read about her ram's unfortunate forays into the burdock patch, drool over pictures of the fleeces as they grow and see pictures of the lambs, quadruplets this year!
When shearing time comes and Kristen is able to see what her harvest looks like for the year she plans the year's "Harvest Shares." Rather then a traditional CSA model she waits until she can inspect the quality and quantity of fiber, decides on yummy blends (often she blends her own wool with other breeds found locally to her farm in Vermont) and which will be sold as roving (wool ready to spin) and which will be processed into yarn. Then she announces what her products will be for the season! While we all scarf up the shares online, she drives the fiber to the mill for processing. And then we patiently (!?) wait! Good mills are notoriously overbusy. But the good mills are worth waiting on.
Each year Kristen and I come up with a piece of pottery special to the farm. The first year I made extra special tumblers. Remember these?
This year I made these sweet ice cream or snack sized bowls.
The black sheep is in honor of Atlas, born two years ago, and Kristen's first lamb at the farm. And a black one at that! (And the wool in the background is some of the luscious roving I received in my share box on Saturday.)
Atlas in the front all grown up!
Because not everyone can afford to buy a share, or might have missed out when they went on sale.....I once again made extra bowls to post in my Etsy shop. Kristen will get a percentage of each sale, so you are helping her feed these fine animals so they can provide us with more of their yummy wool!
If you are interested, don't wait too long as I would not be surprised to see these snapped up quickly. And thank you so much for supporting Kristen!
