Rain day

I took a rain day off from the farm today. Tomorrow I'll paint the rest of the samples on the house, but today I registered us for the PASA conference

http://www.pasafarming.org/conference2010/

and then I visited a sheep breeder in Exeter.

Ruth from Limekiln Corriedales was very helpful and encouraging to me. She's in her eighties and is in the process of thinning her flock. At one point she had 80 sheep, and now it's down to 19. She raises them to show, and has won many prizes at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Rhinebeck, and the PA farm show. Her sheep have some of the best fleeces in the country.

We talked about my apprenticing with her and she's as excited as I am about the idea. It's getting to be a lot of work for her, and she could use the free labor. But even more than that, she loves the idea of having someone with whom to share the "lifetime's worth of knowledge that's in her head." I adore her already, and am more than eager to start working with her.

It looks like we better start working seriously at getting the bottom of the barn ready for sheep.