Today we visited a friend who owns a Gotland sheep ranch and business called “twisted sheep” and sells lovely fleeces for us fiber artists to drool over. I met her at the local fiber festival and she was kind enough to allow us to come out to the ranch to visit the lovely animals that produce the curly wool we all love to work with.
It was amazing fun! These lil guys and gals were so lovable and friendly they immediately came up for lots of pets and a few treats. The one we got our wool from actually followed me around begging for more pets and would waggle her tail as I rubbed her belly just like Conestoga Chuck does when he gets a good belly rub! This little gray gal is such a beautiful gray that her fur actually looks blue! The curls are sooo soft! I could stay and pet these sweet little babies all day if allowed lol.
In case you didn’t know it, every sheep ranch should also have a resident llama. Don’t ask me why but llamas are well know for protecting the sheep from predators like coyotes etc… besides it’s just fun to have a llama! Not to mention you can do amazing things with llama fur as a fiber artist (they are sooooo soft!). They make great “guards” for other ranch animals as well. And you just can’t have a ranch without a resident carrot loving horse! So twisted sheep has both resident llama and carrot lovin horse … I’d say that’s every fiber artists dream come true!
Then we made a quick stop at the local butcher for some farm raised beef to smoke on the grill with roasted marshmallows as dessert :). As we were foraging in the yard for snacks (we believe in edible landscaping and say we are grazing in the yard lol) we saw our friendly praying mantis. Such interesting creatures!
We decided to dig up some carrots because Conestoga Chuck and lil bit love carrots for snacks and so do us humans and wowza! We found this gigantic huge mega carrot hiding in the carrot beds!!! So it got roasted on the barbecue pit along with the meat and was enough to serve 5 people! Along with some peas we had frozen from the garden earlier in the spring and some other side dishes like roasted garlic (that we got from twisted sheep ranch’s garden) , onion, rice, potatoes … we truly eat like kings and queens of old! You just can’t get a better day that this folks!
Strangely enough strawberry and raspberry plants do amazingly well in Montana and seem to love the cold weather. It’s cold enough now for full winter gear on some days and at least long sleeve shirt on others… but the raspberries have gone crazy! And we have had a few random strawberries pop up too! We can have several feet of snow all winter and in the spring when the snow melts it’s amazing to see underneath all that snow are these growing green plants… happily growing: strawberries, carrots, onions, thyme, oregano… all happy and bursting with color!
We do everything organic and compost when we can. Hard to compost in frozen soil in Montana winters. It’s amazing how healthy our soil is. Fishing worms are plentiful and one only has to dig a tiny hole about the size of a coffee cup to pull out a handful of nice big fat worms should one desire.
Edible organic landscaping is totally the way to go! Going out to the front or back yard and “grazing” is the best! So if you have a yard… start turning it into an edible paradise! We take all our extra food that we have too much to consume ourselves down to the local food bank. We always get way more than we (and our friends and neighbors) can consume… and we sometimes “can” some… but we still have a lot left over. We have a normal sized “city” yard so it’s not the size of the space it’s how you plan and organize it 🙂 and what you decide to plant (lawn vs herb garden) … I may have to go back to twisted sheep ranch to beg for some sheep droppings (aka poop) in the spring for the gardens lol.
It’s a lovely state, Montana, and Conestoga Chuck says it’s one you should visit if you get a chance! Especially if you are a fiber artist! Some of the best fibers are found in Montana on these beautiful and plentiful ranches both small and large. We are so lucky to have made a new friend who let us visit her ranch today! And made lots of furry friends too,.. they all had names but I can’t remember them all lol. It’s like going to a big party and meeting a bunch of new people and instantly forgetting their names because there are too many names to remember lol … but at twisted sheep they are all named and they all know their names and come running when called … waggeling their tails behind them 🙂
Conestoga Chuck 