Shop the latest from SweetTreeHillFarm on Etsy. Natural colored Fingering Weight Shetland in 400 years skeins.

Five Natural Colors of Shetland Wool available in 400 yard skeins of fingering weight Hilltop Shetland. Perfect for Fair Isle, Lace Shawls & sock knitting. Knits beautifully on our antique circular sock machine. See 1910 shepherd socks in the store.

Put out to Pasture, Me or the Sheep?

Spring is an exciting time for the sheep because Winter is finally over and so ends a diet of hay and the spring grasses and legumes start to come up.  As a shepherd,  we try to manage our flocks so that the sheep can receive good nutrition from the land and rely less on costly hay.  We want happy sheep and we want a profitable business too.  Easier said than done of course.

For years I have been relying on one pasture that was already somewhat fenced when we moved in.  (I say somewhat because it was old horse fence in need of repairs and woven wire added to keep sheep in. ) It wasn’t too bad because it was three acres and I only had a few sheep.  But as my flock grew, the stress put on this one pasture grew,  and as of last year, it could no longer support the flock.  Last year,  I had to buy hay all summer.  So this last winter,  I had to make a decision… Do I go smaller and sell a bunch of sheep?  Or do I pass through the threshold of hobby farmer and decide to make this an actual farm.. One with real sustainable products,  one that made full use of the resources in a planned and carefully managed way.

First I needed to answer some tough questions.  Have I finally developed a unique and worthy product or products to sell?  Am I done dabbling and ready to serious?  Am I brave?   Well,  first the product.  We now have two we are can now run with after the work and trial and error.  First,  our 1910 Shepherd Socks.

I have spent the last year and a half learning how to use our 100 year old Legare 400 sock machine.  And last February,  spent a week at the John C Campbell Folk School in North Carolina to build on those skills.  We now offer made to order socks with different options in the cuffs,  five natural colors and even ombre stripes. And the yarn used to make these socks is product #2. Five years of researching mills had finally gleaned that beautiful elusive fingering weight Shetland Yarn.

We introduced our Hilltop Shetland fingering weight yarn last week at Powhatan’s Festival of Fiber and it was our number one seller.  We also posted a picture on Instagram and non other than famed yarn critic Clara Parks commented “true gorgeousness” . High praise indeed.  So we have the products that we can run with, that is unique to my farm and can potentially sell quite well. What next?

Am I brave and ready to be a real farm business? It is scary,  but I remind myself that having a fiber farm has been my dream for at least twenty  years.  It is the time to either go big or go home.  And frankly,  hobby farming is expensive. Most fiber farmers never get past the hobby stage. They might sell some products,  trying different ideas,  seeing what might stick, but never really making a profit or coming up with that one product or two they can create consistently with an ongoing growing market. Business farming can generate real revenue. For fiber,  wool in particular,  one has to have a goal of fulfilling a need.  Our yarn is unique in that it is breed specific; Shetland with all the natural colors and strong softness…and it is a smooth fingering weight that works on the sock machines…one of the few if any American grown and milled yarns that do.  I am excited to see how this yarn does in a national marketplace. And our socks,  made with this yarn is a rare piece of clothing manufactured on the farm where the fiber is grown…from flock to feet.

OK…so the next steps was to add infrastructure to the farm to be able to rotate pasture to sustain the numbers it takes to produce this yarn and socks.  And that means fencing and shoots to move the sheep with little stress on the sheep and headache for the shepherd.  It means that the sheep can get nutrition mostly from pasture instead of hay, at least for three seasons of the year.  So I posted a request on the Virginia Farm page on facebook asking for a good reliable fence builder.  I did find one..and surprisingly quickly.  And less than two weeks later,  I have phase one done: new paddock around the barn with a shoot to it from the old pasture,

and the back pasture fenced into two sections with new gates.

I am over the moon… Especially yesterday when I was able to release my flock onto this pasture.

This is only the beginning… We have new fencing planned for next year. Using my tax refund to finance these projects.  But future plans include a new barn and paddock at the back end of our back pasture, and new sock machines and an employee, probably in about two years.  This will require some crowd funding. By then,  hoping our yarn and socks will be off and running.  So stay tuned.

Next step is to get my Etsy site redone and look for other means of selling our products.  We will be posting our yarn in a few days… But you can order your socks here.

And we are posting on instagram with two hash tags to create some buzz… #flocktofeet     and    #knitvashetland

You can follow our progress by searching those hash tags,  and please use those hash tags to share pics of your socked feet and projects with our yarn.  Thanks for supporting our farm.

My view of this great country,  seen from the vantage point of my little farm in the hills of Central Virginia…where Thomas Jefferson once traveled to visit family that lived nearby.  Where a few stones throws away in the Cumberland Courthouse came the first official call for freedom,  for the forming of the world’s first free self ruled nation…drafted and sent to the Virginia House of Burgesses.   (There is a marker for anyone driving through Cumberland Courthouse and we in the county celebrate it every year calling it Patriot’s Day.)  

From this vantage point,  I witnessed the discourse of this election.  It was heated,  it was robust but I will say…not unlike many elections.  It did not surprise me how nasty and emotional and robust it got. It is just we have short memories as a nation.  There have always been lies told, a biased media in the tank for one candidate or another.  Heck,  during the election between Adams and Jefferson,  one paper claimed one should not vote for the other because he is dead. In this election it was all about the labels.  It was about one party striving to define a voter by putting them in a box, labeling them  and then predicting how they will vote.  It was about another party loosing touch with that voter and hence tried to predermine who they thought would appeal to an electorate they did not know and could not define,  so bought into the labels the other side was using.  

 This election back fired on both parties, simply because both parties forgot something.  People don’t fit neatly into any box,  they are not their labels.  The media was biased,  but not in the way you might think.  Their bias was in how they perceived their audience.  They bought into and decided to orchestrate this labeling business. And in doing so,  thought they could sway an election.  You see,  they began to believe their own hype, their own spin.  They stopped listening to who they were talking to.  Instead, they began talking at,  talking past, dictating to,  lying to… a people that did not exist. 

You see the media and both parties thought they knew what motivated folks,  if they could define them.  They thought poor rural folks who were not college graduates would vote one way.  They thought college educated women would vote one way.  They thought urban blacks would vote one way.  They thought LGBT folks would vote one way.  They thought all Hispanics would vote one way.  They thought the military would vote one way.  They thought Catholics,  Jews,  Pagans,  and so on would vote one way.  

And then there was the name calling.  If you are for the second amendment,  you are a dumb hick and hold your bible too tightly.  If you are for gun control,  you are anti American.  If you are for a strong border you are a biggot.  If you are an uneducated white man and for one candidate,  you are a sexist. If you are a white woman and for another candidate you are a feminazi.  And one candidate in particular thought those voting for her opponent were in a basket of deplorables and labeled them xenophobic,  homophobic and so on.  And the media ramped up the name calling and labeling to a fever pitch. 

And the people often sited talking points the media put out there, labeling their friends and family in much of the discourse on Twitter, Facebook and such.  Even in my own family….when we were NOT face to face,  but behind the veil of Facebook, might dabble in the labeling. 

And where the label bias really affected the discourse was in the polling.  Oh my glorious God…the POLLING!  Have we ever seen so much polling?   There were the national polls, there were the state polls,  there were college polls, there were newspaper polls.  And as the election came closer,  these polls were put out daily. And yet… They got it wrong.  And not for the reasons you might think.  It was not the questions they were asking,  it was not the demographic of folks they were canvassing. It was their label bias.  They were not interpreting the data correctly because of the boxes they were putting people in.  But the funny thing is, is that people are not their labels. They do not fit neat and tidy into those boxes.  They do not vote according to how the media,  the parties, the pollsters thought they should vote.  

I am sure I am not alone when I say that we all know and have aquaintences that defy what we might have first thought of them.  I live in a very rural area that has a variety of folks. We have black, white,  Hispanic,  gay,  young families,  older retired (sort of.. many have farms so…they never retire)  and so on.  I know conservative gay people and young people that are liberal on social issues,  but conservative on fiscal issues.  I know women that are against abortion. I know some people who have never voted.  I know some people that will travel across the country for a political cause.  I know military folks that start out life voting liberal then change their thinking. 

So what does this all mean when it came to this crazy election?   The Democrat party had a candidate that whom they thought would win by a landslide because they thought she had broad appeal to who they thought were most people… people who thought like how most of the media thought because,  after all,  the media thought they labelled people correctly.  And the media,  most of them are college educated,  ride the train in first class,  many are married to people involved in government and they of course understood what drove people.  They knew what women wanted,  they knew what white college educated men wanted.  They knew what Hispanics wanted,  they knew what blacks wanted. And since they were the media,  they could convince others what they wanted,  or at least shame them into it.  Some of the media, ok,  let’s be honest,  most of it…was the Democrat Party Superpack.  They thought they had this in the bag,  because the polling said so,  right? 

Now shifting over to the Republican Party.  They believed this label stuff too.  Only because so many in the established leadership failed to leave the Washington Beltway and bothered to really get a feel for what the people were thinking. Or find out what has been happening in their lives. What was their job situation,  what are their fears for the future? What are they looking for in a candidate? They lost touch with the voter.  They had no idea it was not only going to be all about the issues,  but about personality.  Yes but not in the way you think.  Imagine the shock when the voters dismissed the Republican party’s chosen son,  Jeb Bush.  Why?  Wasn’t he accomplished,  believed in all the right things the typical conservative voters want?  He might have been right on some….some of the issues.  But wrong on personality. Imagine the shock when voters chose loud,  crude,  bombastic Donald Trump?  And dear readers,  the reason was… conservative,  bible holding evangelist,  gun loving, constitution purists… Wanted a BULLY! How about that label?  Yes.  They have been getting tired of being beaten up on by the label toting democrats and they were going to throw a label at them.  And have a champion willing to get dirt under his fingernails. And what farmer does not like that?  

Of course it got messy,  because now both sides were name calling.  And the names and labels were divisive, rude,  crude,  disgusting. It was a battle.  Many got hurt.  Families fought,  friends fought. The media had their spin machine in high gear.  And they did something amazing.  They stopped covering the candidates.  They did not do journalism.  Wikee Leaks filled on the vacuum and reported on the back room deals of the Democratic Party and their campaign. Media tried to cover this up,  but word did get out.  And the media totally ignored the last three weeks of the Republican campaign.  Because their candidate got razor sharp and bypassed the media and pulled an FDR.  Right, Trump’s version of Roosevelt’s whistle stop campaign.  Only he used the Trump jet. The schedule Trump maintained was dizzying. Sometimes he visited nine states in 72 hours.  He had rally after rally,  with tens of thousands of people attending… at a moment’s notice.  And guess what?  The name calling stopped,  well,  mostly.  It was all about the issues.  It was about issues actual people,  not labeled people,  not imagined people, not what the media or either party thought people should care about… But issues that real actual people cared about.  A strong military,  strong, safe border,  protecting the constitution,  getting rid of Obamacare that was bankrupting individuals and businesses alike,  bringing back the coal industry,  getting our respect back overseas,  renegotiating our trade deals to bring manufacturing back and manyany jobs back. 

In other words,  bringing back our greatness.  Since the mainstream media would not cover his words or his speeches,  Trump put his face in front as many Americans as possible.  In fairness, Fox Business did cover most all of his speeches.  

In the end, the media believed their own hype and labels,  the pollsters had eggs on their faces… and the American people did not vote their labels.  They voted… Imagine this…. They voted the issues.  Issues that were important to them based on their actual lives.  And as the results were coming in,  the media was dumbfounded.  They could not believe the candidate,  the one they attached every disgusting label they could think of…. sexist,  bully,  homophobic,  biggot,  xenophobic,  stupid,  deplorable, ….won.  Smarter folks than I will be studying this election. But in the end,  the people defied their labels. Neither the media or either party listened to the people,  they tried to define them instead.  

And this shepherd, from her little vantage point at the doorstep of where the idea of this country was first proclaimed watched,  like I watch my sheep, with caring and understanding. And yes,  I argued my views like many of you. Yet  I am so grateful I wake up on my farm in freedom. I do not care what labels we call each other,  because we all wear the best label,  American. 

Ollies Visit to Papa

I though my followers would enjoy this piece about the Shetland homeland….where our sheep came from.

Oliver recently spent the day clipping sheep on Papa, an island off the west side of Scalloway. Papa Isle is owned by the Smith family, the founders of Jamieson & Smith, he headed there with my…

Source: Ollies Visit to Papa

Book Review

The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District https://g.co/kgs/s1L44

My review….

This book come to me at a time when my loneliness has set in and I question my calling as a shepherd.  I raise a small flock of Shetlands in Central Virginia.. on my own with little help.. and feel overwhelmed sometimes.  This book is a gift in that it brings to the forefront the tradition of shepherding in the Lake District of Northern England.  There is a rich tradition of shepherding that goes back centuries and those ancient traditions are practiced and revered today.  This book details this vibrant culture that has often been ignored by the tourists on holiday hiking in the
region,  having themselves been divorced from the land for generations.  The author sits you down in his living room and tells you the way of it.  That it is the culture,  working the land that shapes and becomes part of the landscape.. a sacred union that is so missed in most society.  I for one am drawn to the land and love feeling and experiencing the seasons as I work outdoors.   It is hard at times,  yet glorious at others.  I share this with the author.  I am not part of a traditional,  I seek to start it again.  This book shares the proof it still exists.. that man has not lost his way entirely. I have always taught my kids,  that your environment shapes you,  molds you,  is always part of your identity,  and this book sings to that notion.  I laughed,  cried,  nodded in the shared experiences and took note of the new things I learned.  This is a rich tapestry of images,  emotions and yearnings we all can identify with as each of us tries to make sense of why our souls chose to live life in human form on this earth.  It is full of wisdom…I was sad when I finished.    The narrator was superb. 

I listened to this book which I purchased from audible.  I did so while knitting socks from yarn gleaned from the backs of my sheep.  And while drum carding fluffy batts for the fiber festival coming up in Powhatan.  It linked my hands,  immersed in wool… To my head as images of the story came to life.  It was not really  a story,  but a memoir. And I felt honored to get to know this shepherd.  And I felt really ignorant, because I realized how little I know,  and frightened at the thought of it because I have so many lives in my hands. 

So I will get back to work… To the never ending chores,  with at least better perspective. 

“I keep sheep and my sheep keep me. ”

As one wanders through life making choices one hopes is in line with their purpose… sometimes you stumble on an ah-ha  moment.  I have been struggling with the notion that perhaps farming is not for me after all.  It has been tough this last year especially as I singularly work at the daily chores, feeding all the hungry mouths. 

There is just so much,  not to mention household stuff that goes undone (Why can’t there be maid service at home and not just at hotels!) And to pay the bills,  I have gone back to doing corporate travel.  And fortunately I work out of the house,  but it does take up some 25 hours weekly.

Well back to the subject at hand.  One of my goals with the farm is to manufacture an end product derived from the Shetland wool.  I have produced yarn and roving and other supplies for spinners and knitters…but in the back of my mind,  I wanted it to be clothing. So I had this notion,  why not try to obtain one of the antique sock machines used at the turn of the century?  Well that journey alone had a few dead ends as I learned more about these machines and to evaluate them.  But finally I made a wise purchase.  I then went about the business of learning how to use it.  I had lots of sock yarn I have dyed,  so last Christmas,  all of my family received socks and I have posted some for sale in my farm shop on Etsy. 

The other part of the equation was getting usable yarn from the wool fleeces I have been collecting. I was working with a mill close by for a few years in the hopes of achieving a sock yarn.  But her experience with her equipment and the unusual qualities of Shetland fleeces did not lead us to that goal.  And by now… I had a very good fix in my mind what the yarn needed to be.  No more than fingering weight,  smooth with no slubs,  two ply and a little nylon mixed in. 

So last fall,  while vending at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival, I stumbled upon a booth for Gurdy Run Fiber Mill.  I looked at all the sock yarn she had on display and asked a few questions.  She specialized in sock yarn.  Music to my ears of course.  So I decided to give her a try.  She let me wash my fleeces so the incoming weight would be less and my costs less too. And another piece of luck… She was in Halifax PA,  on the way to my youngest son’s college and I could drop off fleeces instead of adding the cost of shipping.  So we dropped off 9 fleeces and crossed our fingers. 

Nearly five months later… The yarn came.  Cost was not too bad.. a rare thing from a mill.  And the eighteen pounds of Moorit and Shaela colored yarn… was what I had been seeking for the last five years. 

I was eager to try it on my machine.  I tweaked the tension… And made two pairs of socks, a Shaela pair in my husband’s size and a Moorit pair in mine.

They were strong and had the unique silky feel of Shetland.  And there it was… a realization I had achieved a major farm goal that few are doing…growing the fiber and manufacturing a piece of clothing on the farm. It is done with vegetables,  soap,  and meat.  But not with clothing.  Local sourcing clothing has happened little since mass production,  especially since it has gone overseas.  But there is a movement afoot (yes,  pun intended)  to grow the fiber arts.  And with it,  a quest for locally sourced clothing.  A farm is a business and the numbers have to work,  but also the work has to have meaning. If the heart is happy,  the body might not mind the sacrifice and work.  We will see if this part is true,  stay tuned. 

Oh and visit the farm shop for your own 1910 Shepherd’s Socks.  They will be posted soon along side the colorful hand dyed socks I mentioned. 

Where Ya Been?…ahhh..farming…

I am at a place where the farm kind of runs me. If I am not taking care of animals, working on products, getting ready for a festival….I am trying to earn extra money for the farm while working as a virtual corporate travel agent…while sitting in my farm house. Yes, I have found the perfect job for a farmer…an off the farm job, but I do not have to leave it to do the work. Technology allows me to talk to my clients from virtually all over the world and I still have view of my sheep while doing it. For instance, I spoke with a gentleman in China, coming to Newark from Shanghai. The company I work for books travel for many corporations and businesses. They route calls to me via the computer and I use the company’s software to access the traveler’s profile and book flights, cars, hotels and such. But also we use an airline system to go into a reservation and perform exchanges as well. It helped that I learned the formats and codes needed to work in that system while a travel agent for American Express some 20 years ago. Anyway..still there was a learning curve and now that I have been with the company a year..feel I have good grasp of the job now.

As you can see, life is busy. My focus of late has shifted a bit regarding my processing. I love the results I have been getting from the mill…but creativity in creating roving and yarn is limited…and the cost of any mill processing is not  in line with a farmer trying then to sell the yarn produced. The  numbers simply do not work. The only entity making any money is the mill…because once a farmer works in the cost of that processing as well as growing the wool itself, he or she would have to price yarn and roving far above what the market could bare to make any money. One day perhaps, mills will realize this…but now..for me…I am processing the fleeces myself, the ones that spinners have not purchased. And to be honest, while it is slow work, I love it..and have been able to experiment with blends and dyeing in the fleece. And what I am able to produce is one of a kind artisan type work. I have blended batts with silk and angora and mohair…and some lovely hand spun yarn.

Oh…big news..a new acquisition…are you ready?  Ok then…it is an antique sock machine. I have been seeking and studying and researching like crazy for three years…and finally was able to get one. They are pricey…but managed to sock away (haha…you see what I did there?) a bit of money. So now I just received it from Quebec. And the sock machine and I are bonding. I have learned to do cuffs and am now working on heels. I hope to get good and produce Sweet Tree Hill Farm socks in the near future

Some other news…I follow Shetland News…and Shetland Wool Week will be in September…some day I will attend…another thing I am saving for. In the mean time, I share with you the information and perhaps you can go in my place. There will be lots of neat classes and a tour of the islands….oh I so want to go…sigh.
https://youtu.be/VVqvg9bsuDo

James Rebanks on The Shepherd’s Life

James Rebanks on The Shepherd’s Life.

James Rebanks on The Shepherd’s Life

Sometimes I find it hard to put into words why I do what I do. For me is that I yearn to be around wool and sheep and somehow trying to put a business together to justify it. But when the day is finished, I am giving an evening meal to my sheep, after hours of working with their wool, readying batts and yarn for an upcoming festival…I stop, look around…and know I am doing what makes my heart sing.

Sheepy Hollow Farm

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Finding My Religion…

Ever wish you can have a life “refresh” button?  I am creating one for myself as I refocus on what is important to me, resetting what my priorities are and putting aside things that aren’t…listening to that inner compass we are all born with.

A little bit about what has been going on….after 10 years of working on a wholesale line of hand dyed yarns and patterns…of trying to compete and market…attending the trade shows, as I went more and more into debt playing by the rules of the commercial yarn industry…I finally had to cry UNCLE!  And in the meantime, I start my farm…my heart, my dream…and finding some success as I grow that business. Fiber is in my soul…but the debt needed to be dealt with and I needed a reliable way to pay my bills. Like countless others in this lousy economy, I was trying to find a job, an off the farm job that could help me get out of the hole that was growing deeper. Last Fall, I finely got signed onto substitute teach at the local county schools. But sometimes a week or 2 would go by without any calls to teach. So as the lean holiday passed, and countless applications, praying and job search engines…Aflac expressed an interest in me. I researched and found mixed reviews, but a bird in the hand and all that lead me to make the decision to try. So I went through the interview process and was hired as an independent agent. I just needed to get my license…no small task as I had no experience in insurance. I was desperate and so put in tons of time…learning, cold calling, lots and lots of driving. I had to get some professional clothes, hair and so on. And through all this, with some help from family and a great friend, kept my farm going. But not very well. I lost animals, my Etsy site suffered and I was going backwards in the farm business. And I was not making much money in Aflac. Worse yet, some of the people at the regional office were less than honest, and  just folks I did not want to spend my time with. There were bright spots in that my immediate supervisor is turning out to be a nice new friend. And the BIG lesson…gave me a perspective as to what is important to me as I approach old age.

Now…job search still continued and I found and applied for a work from home operation called Working Solutions. And I think that is what it is turning out to be. To hedge my bets, I applied and was accepted in their training program as a travel consultant. In a prior life, I was a corporate travel agent for American Express and this experience worked for me in landing this opportunity…that and my computer experience. So I started the 4 week 4 hour each night of training. But Working Solutions paid me for this training. They offered lots of support and after 3 weeks now on the phone working as a virtual call center agent, in a schedule of my choosing, without any makeup or new clothes required. No commute, except to my new PC (as the software did not work on my mac.) After that 2 year search…finally a job I can live with and work the farm too.

So I find myself, after a much needed break, resetting on the life of my choosing. I even took some wonderful yoga classes while at the beach to revisit the thing that will help with the balance I crave. I am now on the path to get the farm production in high gear as I approach two fall festivals. I am tying up some loose ends with Aflac, revamping my yoga practice, and working hard at excelling as travel agent. Lots of work ahead, but not out of desperation, but out of purpose.

I invite any of you to share your challenges in following the fiber path while making the personal economics work. I think we all can benefit from the mutual support and hints and lessons learned.