"Haircuts for the Wooleys"

I live in Swarthmore, PA and each Saturday between mid-May and late-November, the Borough hosts a Farmer’s Market. As I was strolling through, I noticed the most beautiful basket of bright, bulky yarn off to the side of a table filled with brilliant farm-grown greens. Being an inquisitive sort and considering that everything I see, hear, or touch is fodder for a blog post (I warned you all to be careful!), I asked the lovely individual at the stand, Rachel, if I could take a few pictures and ask a few questions.

Wynnorr Farms, in Westtown Township, has been consistently owned and farmed by the Stratton family since 1924. Their mission is to maintain the land as a working farm and to educate others about the business of farming. Rachel explains that they visit classrooms all the time and routinely welcome school groups. The farm sells fresh corn and other seasonal fruits and vegetables and they also raise Dorset sheep and the sheep, of course, produce wool (btw...9 baby lambs were just born!). The Dorset is an excellent eating sheep that produces a medium grade of wool. The farm hires someone to shear the sheep each spring, which is then sent to Maine to be spun and dyed. The result, as you see, is a lovely, bulky weight wool. I purchased a vibrant lupine purple that will be made into something warm and cozy for my daughter.

If you’d like to learn more about the farm, please visit their website at www.strattonsfarm.com.

Wynnorr Farm

Writing this post reminded me of a book I used to read to my children when they were little called “Haircuts for the Woolseys” by Tomie dePaola. It is a charming little tale about the sheep of Fiddle-Dee-Dee Farms that get their first spring haircuts and wake up to snow-covered fields the next morning. Thank goodness Granny is a knitter!