Hello! As always we are busy, busy here at the ranch!
Addressing some of the rumors you may have heard ; )
As many of you know when we started this adventure we really had expected to be able to have more down time and not get overloaded with "work" and do this for many years to come. We've now been going non stop for 2 years! We've had to make a few changes to our original plans throughout the process and as you'll find out below are going to be making more. We love everything we do here, but are finding little time to do things for ourselves outside of the ranch, keeping my hands from breaking out is still a struggle and I miss having the time to sit down and do some hand spinning just to relax. After much deliberation John and I have decided to start drastically downsizing. We do not have a concrete timeline yet, but over the next two years you will see us start to let things go as we transition to the next chapter in our lives.
Farm Stays:
For now, nothing is changing with our Harvest Host farm stays! We are loving all the visitors we've had here at the ranch and plan to continue being hosts for the next year possibly two.
Fiber Herd:
We will be downsizing our fiber herd by around half this year. As most of you know our Valais sheep were some of the first to leave our ranch. If you all remember, I really compromised my immune system when we started the mill and took on wool full time. For the most part my hands have healed, however, they do still get really irritated and painful by things that use to never get to them. Knitting with wool for long periods of time, and just petting my sheep and donkeys. Since this has been an issue, I have yet to be able to really process any of OUR sheeps wool. With many hours of worrying and consideration, we have decided to start our downsizing our herd, by rehoming our flock of sheep first. Good news is we found two local, loving homes for all the boys and I will be able to visit them if I'd like. We will be letting go of a small handful of our alpacas this year to the right home(s). We are looking at keeping our herd down to 12-15 of the boys for now.
Mill: With our new chapter in life goals, yes we do plan on selling the mill. It has been a once in a lifetime experience we are grateful for. We do not have a set deadline yet, but are thinking we will list it as available towards the end of 2025, possibly beginning of 2026 after we've worked through the fiber from clients we already have scheduled for this year as well as work through our fiber we have on hand and our 2025 shearing.
Overall, this was not the easiest decision for us to make because I dearly love what we have built here. However, we do not want to get to a point where we are having to say 'because of our health we have to sell'....we are saying 'we are selling for our health and wellbeing!' Even when all is said and done, we plan to still be a part of the fiber world and I in fact plan to do more weaving and learn some new fiber arts skills!
2024 Happenings!
-we did start our line of yarns and rovings-we have our Macho collection which is fiber from our herd here at the ranch and we have the Roadrunner collection which is fiber from other farms around the State of NM.
-Festivals and Farm Market-check out the current list on the home page of our website to see our when and where we'll be for Festivals and Farm markets.
We appreciate every one of you that has been on this journey with us! We hope you'll stick around for our next chapter and support any of those who take bits and pieces from what we've built here....animals, the mill, etc.