Tuesday, July 18, 2017

A Visit to Prado de Lana Sheep Farm


A month or so back I mentioned that I met Amanda and Alberto Barcenas of Prado de Lana Sheep Farm at the CNY Fiber Festival, and that I would eventually have more to say about them and their operation. Well.... Last weekend my mother and I took my nieces for a visit to their farm in Chester Co. PA (my parents live less than an hour away from them, lucky me!).

I had really enjoyed meeting and talking with them at the festival and hoped for an opportunity to meet again. Since hoping only gets you so far, I sent them an email and asked if they would be up for a visit. (I also expressed that I would pay for their time of course, the farm life never ends and time spent socializing is time away from all the work that has to be done to keep all the fuzzy critters happy and healthy)! They were more than happy to oblige.

We arrived at 10 am on a Sunday morning, Alberto met us at the car and walked us around back to where Amanda, her daughter Noelia and son Sammy, were waiting with a feeding bottle at the ready. We were going to feed the lambs!!! As soon as Sammy opened the gate Casey (a CVM/Romney mix) came running, ready to be fed.


While my nieces and I were feeding Casey, Amanda told us all about the breeds that they have at Prado de Lana: Romney, Lincoln, & CVM's (California Variegated Mutant), of which the CVM's and Lincoln's are rare breeds. Their original intention was to solely have the Romney and Lincoln (long-wool breeds), but they found themselves, through a series of unexpected events, adopting the (short and fine wool) CVM's along the way. 

They started 3 years ago with just three sheep. Amanda, at the time, was still teaching, but as the flock grew, her time grew short. Just a a year or two in she gave up teaching and began to tend the farm (and their two children) full time. Prado de Lana is now a farm of ~66 sheep, including a handful of rams. Working with a small scale PA fiber mill they produce an array of yarns in a variety of natural colors and weights. (They had a beautiful table set out that I regret not taking a photo of, but you can look around and get a taste here.) They also sell core spun rug yarn, roving and beautiful curly Lincoln locks!

Amanda and Alberto have kept busy attending fiber festivals all over Eastern US including: 
  • Vogue Knitting Live, NYC
  • CNY Fiber Festival
  • Waynesburg Sheep and Fiber Festival
  • Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet
  • Delmarva Wool and Fiber Festival

...to name a few, and have their eyes set on attending some of the larger festivals in the near future.

I ended up leaving with two skeins of 100% Romney wool, 2-ply DK weight, worsted spun. On every tag they includ the name of the sheep the yarn originated from. While I don't remember meeting Cara, I know I met her sisters and am excited to turn her wool into something warm and soothing, and full of memories (made and to be made).

By the time we were preparing to leave we had gotten the grand tour of Prado de Lana Sheep Farm: We had wandered the pastures, feed the weening lambs, sunk our fingers into the Hazel's deep coat, sat in the dirt and talked about sheep and knitting and plans of sheep and knitting, gazed at gardens full of color (both in bloom and in dye), ogled at yarns and woolly stuffs, and made some new friends. A great morning, with great people, in a beautiful place that they get to call home.

Following are some more photos of our morning...

(The Rams)

(Keeping cool on a hot day)



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