This is the 4th post in my blog series; “How I started needle felting and making money with wool from my sheep.”  I started out sharing how growing up on a farm influenced my artistic side and developed my eye for detail.  In the second post I share how homeschooling my children brought me closer to finding my niche. All of this leading you up to the post telling how my daughter started me on my future career path.  In this article I want to share how 4 adorable and much loved sheep came into our lives leading us on an ever-changing adventure that continues to this day.

A Little Girls Birthday Wish

You will want to start by reading my previous articles in this series to understand our madness.  🙂

My daughter’s 8th birthday was approaching and all she wanted was a lamb.  Not a toy lamb, a real live lamb.  Most parents I know wouldn’t even consider this request.  To understand why we even considered this as an option I will give you a little bit of our background. You know all about me, my farm history, homeschooling philosophy and interest in wool yarn by reading my previous articles but you haven’t heard about my husband. My husband Jeff was raised on a farm as well, loves animals, was active in 4H, showed cattle and has a degree in Veterinary Technology.  We had a small herd of beef cattle and had the facilities to accommodate some sheep.

I began looking into the different breeds of wool sheep thinking we could enhance our knitting interests with wool from our own sheep. I found some Romney sheep available in our area. I liked what I read about their breed characteristics and with the added benefit of the kids learning about sheep, wool and showing them for 4H it was easily decided that we would grant my daughter her wish.

Our Flock of Registered Romney Sheep

On my daughter’s 8th birthday we purchased 4 Romney Sheep from a wonderful shepherd named Jan. My daughter picked out 2 ewe lambs and I picked out 2 ewe lambs. Jan was very helpful and informative as we began our journey as shepherds. Not too many months later my oldest son developed an interest in owning sheep as well and we went back to Jan’s farm and he purchased a ewe lamb as well.

It was during this visit with Jan that we were invited to join a local spinning guild and we jumped at the chance. Find out in my next article in this series how joining the Woolly Women added another link in the chain leading me to my future business.