🐑 Fiona & Birna
The Wool Gatherers
Fiona and Birna are not home yet.
But there are some companions
who seem to begin belonging to a place long before they arrive.
Fiona is one of those.
Every time I look at her,
she seems to be asking the same question:
Come on,
Mom.
When are we coming home?
Someday,
I hope the answer will be:
now.
Fiona and Birna will join the little community of animals
I am slowly imagining into life at 5K High Altitude Apothecary
not simply as livestock,
but as companions whose presence becomes part of the rhythm of the place.
And they will bring wool.
Between them,
there will be silvery white and deep brown-black fleece.
Haldor,
the llama I hope will share the mountain with us,
will add black fiber of his own.
That means some of the yarn used here may eventually begin not in a store,
but outside my door.
Sheared.
Washed.
Carded.
Spun by hand.
Perhaps left exactly the colors in which it grew.
Silvery white.
Brown-black.
Black.
Three natural colors belonging to three animals I know by name.
I don’t yet know what Fiona and Birna will teach me about living with sheep.
I’ve never had sheep before.
Perhaps we’ll even play ball.
Although I have a feeling Fiona may make up the rules.
🌿 From Companion to Craft
The animals who live here are not raw materials.
The wool is a gift of living beside them.
That distinction matters to me.
The fiber comes because a sheep needs to be sheared.
What happens afterward
the washing,
carding,
spinning,
weaving,
knitting,
felting
is simply another way of carrying something from the life of the mountain
into the work of my hands.
Someday,
when a strand of Fiona’s silver wool runs through my fingers,
I will know exactly whose coat kept her warm before it became yarn.
And that makes the making different.
Continue to 🦙 Haldor
Return to 🐾 Mountain Companions
