A representative, Brigette, of The Waldorf School of Denver met us at the Colorado Renaissance Festival and, at first, seemed dismissive of the things we do. After all, Waldorf School children are taught to spin in second grade and to weave in fourth grade and she was dealing with fourth grade students who would, no doubt, find us rather boring.
Not at all, we said. Bring ‘em down. We can show ‘em a thing or two!
And so we forgot about the conversation…
Brigette did not forget and about a month later we received a call asking if they could come by and tour, but not spin or weave. We said of course and put our minds to work thinking of things that might interest fourth graders who knew about spinning and weaving.
Sheep! Those fuzzy things that go ‘baaaa.’
As luck would have it we were nearing our quarterly sheep check-up time. This is when we recoat, check for stressors, trim toes, worm if necessary. We spoke with the teachers and they said, after a day of wandering about museums and viewing displays some physical activity and fresh air would be good. The date and time was set. September 14, 2 p.m.
Jeanette and Lena spent most of the morning getting the place ready. I spent most of the morning feeling guilty that I was not helping more as I busied myself about making looms.
And then they arrived – 4 SUVs full of children who had, to all appearances, never been on a farm before. Several of them were dresses in cowboy or prairie girl outfits as they had just come from Bent’s Old Fort.
The sheep were the first thing they saw and immediately an argument erupted.
"Those aren’t sheep! Look at their horns."
"They are too Sheep. Look at their fleeces."
"They don’t have fleeces. They’re wearing coats. Why would fleecy sheep be wearing coats?"
I had stepped outside to assist Jeanette with the incoming flood and to make introductions – planning on sneaking inside as soon as possible to finish another loom. But this conversation sounded like it might need some… er… guidance.
"They are sheep. But they’re a special breed of sheep that gow horns all the time – up to six horns at a time. They wear the coats to keep their fleeces clean so we can spin and weave with it. The goats are over there." I finished pointing to the dairy goat’s pen.
"Those aren’t goats – they don’t have any ears."
"They’re LaMancha goats and they’re born like that." I explained.
"How do they hear their mothers?"
I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get back inside… especially not when the adults started asking me about the looms.
While Jeanette had one group of the kids assisting with corralling and catching sheep to be checked over, I gladly drug out samples of my work.
After the sheep were all checked over, it was decided that moving the haystack would be a good idea… or, maybe playing on it would be better. Some of the hay DID get moved, though.
As they left – leaving just ahead of one of those prairie storms they had heard about at Bent’s Old Fort earlier – they took with them samples of our soaps, newsletters about our farm and one of our trilooms with weaving hook and handspun yarns to share around the class.
We were rewarded with polite goodbyes and a lot of smiling faces… and a little more.
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) and people often don’t quite get how big that is. Here’s a clue… I’m 6′3″ tall…
