Shearling Heaven

Think back to a story I wrote a little over a year ago. Kara had just picked up the raw pelts from the butcher, loaded them into the old farm truck, and made the trek up to Duluth to take them to the tannery. Over the years, we’ve sought ways to utilize these beautiful fleeces from the naughty teenaged boys being turned into lamb chops. We had tried other places before and never seen the pelts again. But this was a new purveyor, and Kara was going to give USA Foxx and Furs a try.

You may also recall from that story how Kara found herself in the elite downtown district, parked right next to the sidewalk, dressed in her chore Carhartts, loading fresh, bloody pelts onto an employee’s cart, with ladies in fine furs and heeled boots parading by. Talk about feeling like an incongruity! Country girl in the city, standing by her rusting farm truck with the missing running gear on one side, while the fashionistas skipped and danced to avoid the little blood trail left by the cart’s procession into the skywalk.

Now, one year later, those same adventuresome pelts were tanned, cleaned, and ready for sale. Kara hauled up this year’s round of fresh pelts (this time she froze them and packed them in black bags and wore “town clothes” so it wasn’t such a hubbub for the cityfolk…though last year’s episode did make a good story), dropping off the materials that will be tanned and ready for next year.

Kara was absolutely going to pop when she brought home the pelts (announcing “My sheep are back!”), which packed our PT Cruiser full to the gills. All 19 were surprisingly large, with the classic sheep-back outline including some of the neck, over the legs, and the top of the tail. Other, commercial shearling is cropped quite close, but our pelts still had the full fleece—lush and thick like memory foam. The fleeces were also amazingly clean, though they still had that cozy, lanoline smell.

Lanoline is the oil that sheep make in their skin that keeps their wool from being totally soaked in the rain (like ducks oiling their feathers to repel water). It also preserves the fibers and naturally rejects dirt. This is why wool rugs can often be shaken, pounded, or brushed clean of dirt. Wool is also a natural fire retardant, which makes it appropriate for hearths and around babies.

On the back of the shearling pelts, the leather is a beautiful creamy white, soft, and supple. I was chilled from working outside when Kara returned home and immediately wrapped up in one of the fleeces. Goodness, what an incredible R-value! No wonder the peasant folk working out on the hillside in the damp and the dew and the wind over the ages would have these on hand for comfort! You could wrap up in it, lay in down on a rock or log and sit on it, or even wrap a chilled, lost lamb in one until the little one’s ewe could be found.

Each fleece also shows the distinctive wool nature of the breed of sheep that grew it. For our dairy flock, we’ve crossed Dorset with some East Fresian and Lacone (dairy genetics), along with the Welsh Clun Forest (meat quality and wide hips) and Finn Sheep (quality wool and multiple births). The lambs with more of the Clun genetics had dense, springy fleeces, while the Finn types had curly, crimpy locks with a longer “staple” (fleece length). Some are thicker, some are shorter, some are longer, some are wavy. Each has its own character, which makes it fun to pet them all, just for the experience.

A few of the fleeces had some defects (the butcher cut through the skin in a few places or some of the wool sloughed off during the tanning process because we didn’t get them chilled fast enough), and Kara is keeping these to turn into mittens, hats, and other accessories. She just purchased a new foot and special needles and thread for her sewing machine, and I’m sure her fingers are itching to play with this new material!

Cozy on the hearth, as you step out of bed, or draped over a wooden bench or trunk, these shearling pelts are an incredibly exciting new product from our beloved sheep! They would also make wonderful car seat covers—warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It really is wonderful knowing that we can make such a beautiful product from a piece of our sheep that often goes wasted—thrown out in the gut bin at the butcher because no one knows how to process the pelts anymore.

Whether or not you need a sheep pelt in your life, I encourage you to stop by Farmstead Creamery just to feel the wonderful texture and warmth. So often, furs are frowned upon because of the death associated with their procurement. But in this case, we’re finding a way to create value in what is typically an agricultural waste product. Here’s to (finally!) a sheep pelt success story, begun over a year ago with that hilarious—and incongruous—trip to Duluth. See you down on the farm sometime.