This is a surprise post in the WOVEMBER schedule, designed to inspire anyone thinking of entering our photo contest! For this post we shall see “Growing Wool” as captured by the supremely talented Susan Gibbs. For those of you not familiar with the story, Susan left her job as a news producer in NYC, and now runs Juniper Moon Farm. Of particular interest to WOVEMBER is Susan’s approach to “Closing the Gap”. Deb Robson explains the importance of this in asuperb guest post, written for the Juniper Moon Farm blog:
I love what you are doing at Juniper Moon Farm with your fiber CSA. It’s a creative way to not only set up a new economic model but also to establish relationships between the fiber folk who are making things and the shepherds and farmers who care for the animals who grow the fiber. I think that’s one of the most important aspects of the fiber world’s next direction of growth, and you are definitely creating a wonderful model and setting a superb example of what can be done.
– Deb Robson, guest post, Juniper Moon Farm blog
As Deb writes, Juniper Moon Farm runs the world’s first Yarn CSA scheme, through which you can literally buy a share of the annual wool crop directly from the farm! Shearing parties and other such occasions relating to the shepherding calendar additionally give people a chance to really connect with where their wool comes from in fun and festive circumstances, and there is also an annual shepherding camp for folks who want to learn how to keep sheep. The glue that binds all these activities together is the informative and beautiful Juniper Moon Farm blog on which Susie and other folks working at JMF share the joys and the lows of working the land. The blog really allows you to get a sense of the animals that live on the farm, and part of the reason for this is the shepherd’s eye that Susan brings to her photography. She has written a really helpful post here about photographing animals, and her pictures speak volumes by themselves! Without further ado, here’s “Growing Wool in pictures” by Susan Gibbs.
For those interested in reading more about the specific fibre-types grown on Juniper Moon Farm, you might be interestedin Deb Robson’s super blog post. All these images were originally published on the Juniper Moon Farm website, and are © Susan Gibbs. They are used with her kind permission.