A Morning at Black Pines Sheep…
See the full versions of these photos as a slideshow here.
Monday morning I got up quite early and headed to Snow‘s to pick up Liz for a day of fibery tourism. We arrived at Black Pines Sheep run by the Dows just a bit north and east of Severance, CO and Bruce’s Bar (famous for their Rocky Mountain Oysters which we decided were not on the breakfast menu for Monday morning) around 9:30am. Myrtle was out in the corrals trying to get photos of some of the sheep so she could register them so we headed on down.
Liz and I went a bit crazy with the photographs. I have about 60 total on my hard drive of just the ranch. You’d swear I had never seen sheep before, LOL! I have to say, I adored the Wensleydales with their mutton chops and how thier sounds were lower and kind of gravely and filled with vibrato and just sounded like what something with mutton chops should sound like.
And the lambs… Who can resist those cute little bas and the thier adorable little faces?? Especially when they aren’t afraid of you yet! *sigh*
The Teeswater were fun to look at as well with their almost dreadlock look. I adore the tufts on the tops of their heads! On the right is a CVM/Romeldale of which Liz, Theresa, and Julie are great fans. I have my own reason for adoring them myself which those who know me in real life understand.
Of course the morning would not have been complete without fleece shopping! On the left is one wall of the fleece room at Black Pines Sheep. This is where the skirted and ready for sale fleeces live. That set of shelves held a lot of Karakul, but also some Teesewater and some Wensleydale fleeces if I recall correctly. The large stack in front were some CVM/Romeldale fleeces that Myrtle had set aside especially for Liz to check out. In case you were wondering if we purchased anything, those two big garbage bags in the picture to the right are what will be going to live with Liz. I believe that is 6 fleeces (EDIT: I stand corrected, that is five fleeces). Plus, Liz put her name on a gorgous black CVM/Romeldale that hadn’t yet been skirted but was so big it will take two people to transport it to the skirting table! To save on shipping Myrtle will be delivering them to Maryland Sheep & Wool for her. I too did succumb to the lures of lovely CVM/Romeldale fleece despite my lack of carders of any type or combs or even so much as a flicker. But, there will be more on that later…
After nearly three hours on the ranch we headed back to Loveland for a wonderful lunch of exotic meats at Henry’s Pub (buffalo meatloaf and elk brat followed by a great bread pudding) with Amanda who then took us on a tour of Interweave Press (be sure to click that link so you too can take a bit of a tour yourself).
The day ended with some fleece washing (Myrtle gave us some samples from some unskirted fleeces which I’ll share more about later as well) and then a lovely evening at Catalyst Coffee with all the SnB gals.
All in all it was a busy few days, but I had a blast! Liz, we all enjoyed your company very much and would *love* to have you back to visit if you don’t hold the altitude sickness against us :-) I promise we won’t whisk you to even higher elevations right away next time! And, Emma will get friendlier with each visit, I promise! I suspect the same will be true of VanGogh as well, as he bit me my first visit with him and we are fast friends now…
previous post: Celebrate Colorado! :: next post: Random Friday…
