Debonair Rug  

Ah, November in Montana. The leaves have all fallen, the air is brisk, and we’ve seen our first snow. At our ranch, love is in the air. The sheep girls go into season, and the boys think they’re perfect boyfriend material. Seriously so funny to watch them strut, butt heads with each other and walk around with their upper lips in the air, all the while, their ‘cologne’ is strong enough to smell a mile away.  I’ll have to blog about that one some other time, because that’s pretty entertaining stuff.  

For the farmers though, fall means major planning and preparation for breeding. Who gets to be bred and to who, all with the hopes that next year’s lambs will be better then this year’s. We’re very lucky here because we have a little community of like-minded Gotland sheep breeders, where we all get together and talk about how we can improve our flocks.  

So in the midst of conversations about our top rams, my friend Stephanie Isbell mentioned one of their rams named Debonair. Now I know that within a huge batch of fleeces that she sold me, there was one in there with that name. So I decided to dig that fleece out and felt it, just to see the quality of the wool, the strength of his curls and the colors. All raw fleeces look NOTHING like they do once felted and washed, and his was no exception. Here is his fleece, all layed out for felting. 

At this stage, it really doesn’t look like much, except for the fact that it was HUGE. I kept unrolling it, thinking ‘where the heck is the end of this thing?’ Seriously impressive. Nothing beats a giant ram’s fleece, and this was no exception.  But the colors were dull and faded looking, it was matted down, dirty, stinky and just plain ugly. But what the heck? Let's see what we can do with it. 

After about 50 gallons of boiling, soapy water, exhausted tricep arm muscles, a double felting and about 100 rinses, I pulled this rug out of the water and once again, was completely dumbfounded by how beautiful it turned out. I always expect to be surprised, but still. Every. Single. Time. Incredible.  

 So I know you're thinking, ‘how in the world is that the same fleece?!’. Well it just is. One more example of how we should never take something at face value. Never pre-judge a fleece before it’s washed. And always expect to be pleasantly surprised. Gotland sheep. Best. Breed. Ever.