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Stephany Wilkes

Author & Sheep Shearer

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May 7, 2017 by Stephany Wilkes

Come Undone

And, just like that, May.

 I am this tired.

I do not know the last time I did not work a weekend, which was not the point of quitting my day job, I’ll have you know. The idea was to shear more on weekdays.

The frenetic pace of life, the death of someone close to me every single month of this year (save this month, so far, knock on wood), and caring for a cherished friend with cancer, has pummeled me. How did anyone make it through the AIDS crisis, which was so much worse?

Grossly overfed, obese sheep have pummeled me, too. While shearing some of these miserable, gagging, wheezing beings two weeks ago, I hurt my left shoulder. It felt partially dislocated, my left arm suddenly weak, painful and rather useless.

I asked another shearer to take one of my scheduled jobs while I healed and, as soon as I felt a bit better, promptly sheared again. Now I’ve really gone and done it. There will be no shearing for a few weeks. I want to shear sheep long term, for as much of my life as I’m able, which means I need to heal in the short term. Because I could not stop for deaths, my body stopped for me.

Today is the first time I have paused in months. And I need to, because I have work to do. A long to-do list has grown since January, holding all of the work to do when I’m not working.

This afternoon, I sat down to tackle it. Choices:

  • Stripping the paint off of the original 1950 front door, repainting it, and, I suppose, putting up a plywood barrier until that’s through? (Is that what one does?)
  • Taking the previous home owner’s pesticides to God knows where for disposal
  • Scrubbing out the nauseating compost bin

I could not face it. It was too overwhelming and I too depleted.

But the pile of clothes in the sewing room that needs mending, that I could face. And not only could I face it, I could genuinely enjoy it. I love sewing and knitting but, as a self-avowed anti-consumerist, feel incredibly guilty if I make something I don’t need. (I’m great at ruining things for myself.) And, like most Americans, I don’t need anything. I could go years without buying a single new item of clothing or pair of shoes and still not wear out every single thing I already own.

My compromise is to focus on making things my husband and I do need. I knit a lot more socks than I used to, and I’m knitting him a traditional gansey on size 2 needles. That will keep me occupied for a nice long while. I also need clothing for warmer weather. San Francisco has a pretty mild climate but, like the rest of the world, we have a lot more hot days that feel like L.A. than we used to. That means sewing things like linen tunics and cotton dresses, maybe knitting a linen summer sweater, and taking time with the details: trims, better seams. Jeans require solid sewing effort, too, and those we actually wear through.

But mending, mending requires no excuses. It is not ethically problematic and is almost instantly gratifying, better even than knitting a dishcloth.

I started small, with a hole in a sweater I knit a few years ago:


There’s a hole in my sweater, dear Liza, dear Liza…

Herein lies the problem with pure Merino: It’s soft. Too soft. So soft that it not only pills easily, but breaks.

I can’t complain too much. I purchased this sweater quantity of yarn for a song, not even $60, if memory serves. Even at Black Sheep Gathering, folks apparently weren’t interested in undyed, black Merino and the seller wanted the yarn gone. I happily knit it up and it fits great: regardless of what this rip might imply, this sweater fits perfectly in the shoulders. I was quite miffed when I went to put it on and noticed The Hole.

It is fixed:

I then moved on to a hole in my shearing overalls, which I put there when my shearing handpiece went a little bit too far. I sure am glad that sharp metal only got the fabric:

Now, I only wear these shearing and in the garden, so I’ve got no one to impress, but why not apply a little scrap of sock yarn?


I come from a long line of Polish and Czech people who suffered mightily under Stalin and Hitler, so I sincerely hope these stitches don’t look like little swastikas…

Then I was on a role. I hand sewed some separating seams on two summer shirts I sewed last year, and used my trusty dish-soap-and-peroxide combo to remove mud stains from a very old sweater of my husband’s, which also has a few tiny holes in it. I plan to try a trick I heard from a friend, in which she took fusible interfacing, put it behind tiny, moth-made sweater holes, and steamed and stretched a delicate knit fabric together right on top of the interfacing. She swears the tiny holes are now invisible. Clever!

I may attempt visible, or artful, mending too, which I found while searching for mending tips and techniques. I love that, on the Internet, just about anything you find is a trend or a subculture to someone. I found Tom of Holland and his Visible Mending Programme, in which he makes mending visible to encourage more sustainable relationships between our garments and ourselves. I found the The Ardent Thread (I hope to get into her mending class soon), beautiful mending inspiration at Wishi Washi Studio, and The School of Gentle Protest.

And I feel better than I did this morning.

I think I will also try to fix my hair dryer, with its noisy loose ball bearing from clumsy me dropping it. I figure it is a fairly low-risk endeavor since I hardly ever use it anyway.

I cannot cure cancer or raise the dead, but I will fix the few things I can, and hope my shoulder fixes itself.

Filed Under: blog, Craft, Fleece and Fiber, Knitting, Sheep Shearing

April 17, 2017 by Stephany Wilkes

For the Shear Love of It

Filed Under: blog

March 22, 2017 by Stephany Wilkes

Humble with Gratitude on National Ag Day

Today is #NationalAgDay. Doing the itty piddly bit of ag work I do has changed my life and my mind about a lot of things during the past four years. It has corrected a lot of my urban, uninformed, mainstream misconceptions.

It is quite an experience to be on the receiving end of those misconceptions, too, what with PETA telling the world that shearing means I skin animals alive. Here are some before and after photos from my Saturday morning shearing that depict reality.

Before:

 

After:

I view the organic label differently now. There are certified organic pesticides that will kill a sheep if ingested and that I don’t recommend for anyone. I have seen sheep suffer for that label, skinny and desperately sick and in need of antibiotics they do not receive. By contrast, I’ve sheared “feed lot” animals that have a much better quality of life than farm animals. Things are just not as simple as the grocery store labels want to make them look.

I know smaller, local meat processing facilities with a dozen or so (deserved and appropriate, believe me) citations from various regulatory agencies, but folks don’t criticize them and save the vitriol for the large processor who does a far better job. They can tell you precisely how long it takes (down to the day or hour) for a certain something to make its way out of a sheep’s system.

I am exhausted by folks who can only conceive of all animals as pets to serve (in most cases) emotional human needs, and do not appreciate the incredible work they do in protection and herding. I am heartbroken when I hear that an uninformed person saw a friend’s herding dog in a truck bed, outside in the rain, and called the police. Never mind that the dog worked all day outside in the rain, is fine, and would hate to be confined indoors. That person literally cannot conceive of a working dog.

I wish banks and health insurance companies were regulated to a fraction of the degree that farms are. A fraction.

I hear a lot about unregulated immigrant labor, but I have yet to witness it. I know the H2-A visa program well, and it is more tightly regulated than you can imagine. I have learned so, so, SO much from the Peruvian shepherds I have met, the living stewards of unbroken generations of a shepherding tradition that this country largely abandoned decades ago. No, there are not Americans to do this work. Ask ag companies how many Americans they go through (10, 15, 20) before they finally give up and get some highly qualifed H2-A workers.

You know how many people go to shearing school and actually want to work as shearers afterward? Not many. You know how many white folks I see working the vineyards during the crush? A handful, maybe two. And that’s when there is plenty of overtime pay and it’s not a bad deal.

I have seen the bias at banks of all sizes, unwilling to lend money to a rural business with a sound, airtight business case but perfectly willing to hand over a jumbo mortgage or a loan for yet another food delivery app.

Because the banks will not loan, money to start rural businesses must come from elsewhere. This new administration has proposed budget cuts of $95 million to USDA Rural Development programs, and cuts of more than $4 billion to USDA Ag programs overall. These cuts would take us back to the 1978 USDA budget, when I was a baby.

The USDA Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG) program has been critical to the small but promising growth in U.S. wool production and to re-establishing wool textile manufacturing back on our shores. In northern California, funds from this program have helped to support the production of California wool cloth (grown in Modoc County and woven into twill fabric at Huston Textile, a business started by an Iraq veteran), wool batting and bedding, and more. Big brands, small artisans, and home hobbyists are all interested these products and paying premiums for them.

Just when things look promising and have some momentum, and wool producers start to see some benefit, here comes this 1978-level USDA budget. Last year, in 2016 fiscal, the USDA VAPG program had $44 million of grant funds available. This year, it has just $11 million available. I need to know why. I struggle to understand why an Iraq war veteran starting a mill should not receive support from the government he defended.

People often ask me when I am going to get sheep and land of my own. After four years working with livestock and doing some farm sitting (awake all night believing that if there is one night the coyote or mountain lion will come, it will happen the nights that I’m responsible), I usually say “Uh uh. It’s too hard. I’ll stick with shearing. It’s easier.” And it’s not easy.

To everyone who chooses the harder path, day after drought or flooded or wildfire day, thank you. I absolutely bow down to you on #NationalAgDay.

Filed Under: blog, Sheep, Sheep Shearing Tagged With: NationalAgDay, sheep365

January 30, 2017 by Stephany Wilkes

Shearing Season Opener

My shearing season officially opened on January 27-28, 2017 in Petaluma. I am elated to be back at it, putting my back into it. Historically, the first day back is humbling. This year was no exception, but I got off to a far better start than last year, and I am happy with how these two working days went. Don’t believe me? Note the ridiculous grin on my face as I finish my first sheep of the day, and soak my husband’s baseball cap with sweat (I washed it today!):

A woman with short blonde ponytail and tan baseball cap in a blue shirt, bent over a sheep laying on its side, removing its wool
Yee haw! Last few strokes on the first sheep of the year, red in the face and sweating. Yes, you can see some extra wool on this sheep that had multi-year wool growth. I left it there on purpose. Beneath that dense wool are wrinkles. I opted to leave a little more wool in favor of fewer nicks. That’s how I roll. You need not agree.

Being a lot less sedentary in January and lifting weights at least twice a week helped a great deal on my first day back in the barn.

This first job was better than usual for another reason: I got to do it with Jordan Reed, whom I met at shearing school four years ago now.

A woman in blue shirt, tan overalls, and tan baseball cap standing in front of a sheep pen, containing spotted sheep, with her arm draped over a thin man in bandana, tank top, and pants.
Fast and filthy friends. These overalls add 30 lbs. and I don’t care. We are about halfway done shearing the sheep (a total of 77 or so) at this point.

Jordan and I are, in some ways, an unlikely pair of friends: We were, each of us, fortunately and totally wrong about each other. On the first day of shearing school, Jordan took me for a “rich fiber lady” and I was a bit intimidated by what I misinterpreted as bravado. By the fourth day of shearing school, we were trading Salon Pas patches and bottles of wine. Jordan took me out on my first “real” shearing job, which taught me a great deal and gave me the courage to continue and book jobs of my own.

Shearing friends are special folk: near and dear, crew and craftsmen, they are the people who have seen you through the wars, who have seen you at your worst, who have seen your stupid mistakes and tears of exhaustion, and bring you back from the brink to keep going, even though your quads may be screaming and your spine feels detached from your lower extremities.

A man in bandana and tank top, squatted over a brown sheep, shearing off the wool on the top of the sheep's head, using a motorized handpiece
Jordan shears a Shrek sheep, one with between three and five years worth of wool growth. He did an excellent job.

I learn something new and challenge myself in different directions on each job, and this one was no exception. Approximately half of the 77 total sheep had two or more years worth of wool. This is common, because it can be very difficult for flock owners to find a shearer.

Multi-year wool growth creates a challenge for the shearer. Wool is heavy: one year’s fleece might weigh 8-15 lbs., depending on the breed, and it increases with each passing year. The weight of that wool pulls on the sheep’s very thin, membrane like skin, creating wrinkles over time. This makes the sheep’s skin much harder to make taut, and thus easier to cut. In addition, the lanolin can dry out and, with dirt added, create waxy clumps that are difficult to push shears through. When dealing with all of this, shearers have to use extra precaution and time to remove wool in the safest, most humane way possible. It is a test of skill, for sure.

We did a good job. It was difficult at times, but we got through it and the sheep looked clean (and not nicked to bits) when we were finished. Look at this fleece! Much of it had felted on the sheep’s body. My suggestion was to further felt it, which would also clean it, and throw it in front of the fireplace to use as a bearskin rug equivalent. Am I right, or am I right?!

A man in bandana and tank top with a complete brown sheep fleece spread out on plywood, on top of hay
Marvelous shearing by Jordan. The sheep was so happy to have 3-5 years worth of wool off its body that it just about pranced out of the barn.
A couple of dozen sheep, some spotted, in a barn, standing on a straw-strewn floor
Friesian sheep in dappled barn light, and as far away from us as possible.
Clear garbage bags full of raw wool fleeces, white and brown
I admit that seeing the fleeces bagged up this way makes me feel like we accomplished something.

The following morning, we had just 20 sheep to shear between the two of us, about a few hours’ worth of work with sheep penning, gear moving, and so on. It was 37 degrees in the mornings. Chilly! I was so grateful to be in a nice barn.

16426035_10209667277453482_304007276766619395_n
The lucky sheep of Day Two are penned and within reasonably easy reach.

I “let” Jordan shear both rams. This guy, Romeo, was a beauty and Jordan did a beautiful job:

We included the handpiece for a real "trophy" photo.
We included the hand piece for a real “trophy” photo. Is this a gorgeous ram or what? This year, we’re told, he impregnated all but five ewes!

Thank you, Fran LeClerc and Jordan Reed, for taking and sharing all of the photos in this post. I love you both and am so grateful for the lives we lead that, every so often, put us in the same place at the same time, doing the same enjoyable work.

Filed Under: blog, Craft, Fleece and Fiber, Sheep, Sheep Shearing Tagged With: sheep shearing

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You can buy wool cheaper in Australia; let your forty acres of sheep grazing land go to waste. You can buy rice cheaper in some foreign clime; let your rice lands go to waste. You can buy woolen goods cheaper; burn your woolen factories, let your water-power run to waste, and cease to work your coal mines. God made a mistake when He gave you these gifts.

William Lawrence
The American Wool Interest, in address of the Farmers’ National Congress at Chicago, November 1887

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Handcrafted with on the Genesis Framework