What a whirlwind the past few months have been! And what a huge learning curve! It’s been way too long since our last update, so here goes…
As some of you may know, we received our first grant monies – and purchased our first equipment - in the spring of 2023. This meant we could move forward with creating workspaces in the farm’s outbuildings, and with buying an e-carder. Then a supporter alerted us to some proper equipment going to waste in a barn – which included a modern (used) Belfast picker and the Victorian carder we’ve named Carolyne – and an awful lot of you helped us crowdfund enough to purchase and begin repairs on them. We rescued 270 landfill-bound Shetland fleeces to add to the Hirsel’s backlog of Hebridean fleeces, and set about using them to learn how to process wool in our temporary washroom, and with the Belfast picker and the e-carder. Carolyne sat, loved but lonely, in her own room, while we sought out a knowledgeable technician to help repair her. Then, in June of this year, feeling we knew what we were doing, we began taking client’s wool for processing…and quickly found that the learning curve had become even steeper!
One of our biggest challenges is that we’re all still volunteers, and our deeply held belief that being farmers and crafters makes us good people to build this thing for all of us…also means we have full schedules elsewhere. Two of the three regulars come in once or twice a week, and while the third can pop in almost every day, even on those days, the mill work must be done in between other chores. We hope to remedy this in 2025, by funding our first part-time employee.
But even more challenging has been the size of our carder. An e-carder is great for stepping up from a manual carder…but it’s woefully inadequate for the amounts we’re trying to process - our maximum of 25 kg was waaay to ambitious for this equipment! Especially combined with the few hours we can put in at it every week.
However, we’re getting through it all, albeit slower than we’d hoped. We nearly had all the final client’s wool washed before winter froze the water pipes in the temporary washing setup. And we’ll get that sorted soon. We’re getting there.
The best thing about the past few months has been our patient, supportive clients, who were brave enough to take a chance on us during our first outing…and have been unbelievably patient with us.
The next best thing has been how much we’ve learned. We’ve processed Shetland, Hebridean, Jacob, Cheviot, and more, learning the different handling for each of them, and for the different qualities and staple lengths in even a single client’s collection. Since our process includes so much hands-on work, we can give every fleece the attention it needs, but it’s time consuming, too.
We’ve also learned how to talk to incoming clients – how important it is to develop good communication beforehand and on receiving their fleeces. We’ve particularly learned that when we ask people to ‘prep’ their fleece before bringing it in, to make sure we all share the same definition of ‘prep’. How to track fleece through the process so we don’t mix client’s orders, how to shape a bespoke washing protocol to each batch of wool, how to eat crow when we mess up. How to get through a period when our water source dried up (back up water tanks). And how to adapt to the slings and arrows of the wool industry’s fortune: New Lanark’s closing took a huge order off our hands, which hit our earnings badly. A super bonus was being able to offer a limited amount of training and tours to others, to share our progress.
So here we are, six months after taking in our first client. A lot of learning (and wool!) under the belt, Carolyne scheduled to come online in February (so we have a few months to learn how to use her properly before your 2025 fleeces start coming off the sheep), with a business plan in the works, and ice coating everything on the farm.
I speak for myself, but would guess it’s true of the entire on-site team: we’re tired, yes, but even more sure that we’re doing the right thing, and building something amazing for all of us.
So on this day of Thanksgiving in my birth nation, I want to say a huge thank you to the whole team (especially the amazing Anna and Jan), to Donald who allows this madness to live at the farm, to Stephen who has joined him in the quest to renovate Carolyne, and to the board members and advisors who are there whenever we call on them (sometimes in panic). But most of all, we all want to thank you, our supporters and clients, for sticking with us through our learning time. This company can only be built – and is being built – with your support. As we learn more about how to do everything…one of the things we’ll learn is how to give back in a way that helps show our appreciation for that support, and reward it.
So, what’s next?
We’ll be finishing up with the wool we have in process, then stopping with commission work until next season. But we won’t be idle: we have assessments to conduct, a business plan to write, in-house projects to do, and of course: Carolyne to bring online and practice on. We’re busy with ongoing discussions about how to build Highland Wool’s permanent home (more news about that to come in the new year). And in between, we’ll take some time to reflect and rest, and to catch up with family and friends who have been right there with us for this first year of production. In February, it’ll be two years since we incorporated, and time for another newsletter.
Until then, take care of yourselves and each other, thank you sharing this journey with us, and happy holidays to all of you.
Comments