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September 2024

 

Hello September, hello new month! With cooler nights, morning mists and the late summer fruits of plums, brambles and grains ripening (amid the rainfall), it really feels like a turn to autumn and preparations for winter ahead. 

 

            

 

For sheep farmers, autumn is the first season in the next yearly cycle, when we are preparing our ewes for the winter months to come. Later in the season, the ewes will meet the rams with the hope of new arrivals on farm in the spring. 

 

        

 

The summer wool harvest is packaged with some sorting and washing still to do on dry and bright autumn days. We are also gathering the last summer dye colours of the season before these plants retreat and grow again after the winter. Plants that can be used only fresh are brewed now; dye plants and flowers that can be stored are picked and dried. 

 

        

 

Here some of our yarns of all colours from dock leaves and alder cones to madder root and woad. The wools are Bluefaced Leicester and Scotch Mule (Bluefaced Leicester x Scottish Blackface). Each batch of our yarn is unique, grown over a year through all four seasons and particular to the sheep and flocks that produce it. 

 

 

With the full joys of autumn almost upon us, it's time to commence the rhythms of winter knits, a time of making and of mending. 

 

Wishing all farmers a sucessful harvest and a good start to the new farm cycle.