Singing Spindle Spinnery

I took this photograph in Martin and Kelly von Trapp’s barn in Waitsfield, VT. I was just visiting their sheep to see the new lambs. I saw a scene that I wanted to capture, and ran out to my car to get my camera. I took several shots. When the photographs came back from the photofinisher, he had put a black square on top of this image which was too say it was too dark. I peeled off the black sticker and said out loud “This is exactly what I wanted!” This image won a photo contest in New Boston, NH in 1992 and was in a postcard calendar for the same year. I have been making and selling blank greeting cards from this image ever since. Each batch of the cards always sell out and then I make more.

Each time one of our ewes went into labor, we would separate her from the rams, since some rams can be too aggressive around the pregnant ewe or young lambs. I spent a lot of time in the barn when the lambs were young to check on them and the mother to prevent some early problems. I was lucky to have my camera on me as the father of this lamb came to check on him. It was clear to me that they kissed as they smelled eachother to be sure they knew who the other was. I will never foget the tenderness I felt as I watched the father checking on his new son. This is the favorite of my mother who is more than 90. She loved the peace she felt when watching the sheep grazing on the meadow of our West Brattleboro, VT farm.

This photo reminds me of how our Romney-Cross ram, named Friendly, always came right up close to the fence to be stroked under the chin, as I loved to do. Of course he would have loved a treat and sometimes there were cornstalks left from cleaning up the garden, with short nubbins on them, there was the Red Hen day-old bread they loved and the Zucchinis that got too big for our consumption. All the sheep loved to have our dog, Joy, lick out their ears on a regular basis. Friendly and all of his descendants were very sweet sheep. It was not uncommon for me to kiss them on their noses, and rub my face on theirs. I love the smell of sheep’s wool.

Our daughter, Eliza Joy took this photograph of me. It was one of my favorite things to hold the new lambs. This one that I’m holding here was a good week to two weeks old. At that point in a young lamb’s life, they can run fast, and they are not as apt to stay close to their mother’s side all the time. It was a huge challenge to catch a lamb of this stage of his development. On my side was that the snow was deep and it could not go too far since the barnyard was small at this time of the winter. I am wearing a hat I handspun and handknit using a pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s book called Knitter’s Almanac. I have that book in my shop and it is for sale. The price is $6.95. This hat is the warmest hat I have ever worn.

Our sheep would line up to have our dog, Joy, lick out their ears. This time I noticed that Joy was not licking out the ram’s ear, it was the ram’s eye. I did not know why, so I went up closer to see that the ram had an inflamation around his eye. I recognized it as entropion, a condition in which the eye lashes point into the sheep’s eye, it is not uncommon, but would need the vet to do a procedure that would take a tuck in the eyelid, to direct the eyelashes outward. I took the sheep to the vet immediately. If it had not been for Joy, our blind Australian Sheepdog, I would not have known that our ram needed the care of a vet.

This mother sheep was especially photogenic. She seemed to always pose with her lamb, for the camera. I particularly loved this moment because of the light coming through the barnboards behind her and her pure white lamb. You can see the Finn genetics in her background. They show appear in the shape of her head and face.

Each spring when the lambs are old enough and sturdy enough to venture out into the wider barnyard, we would open the door of their pen, and let them out. I loved looking at the lambs on their first time out the door. It is difficult to see in this smaller version of this photograph, but the lamb’s mother is right behind, keeping a very close watch that everything will be okay. I loved watching the lambs frolic and jump up and down in the air as they tore all around the hillside pasture at around 6PM each evening.

This is one of my favorite shots of a lamb up-close. They loved to watch me in the barn in early spring. This one was un- afraid of me and I was able to get very close. You can look into the little lamb’s soul in this one.

Our daughter, Eliza Joy, took this photograph of me. I am holding a young lamb in the winter. You see the snow in the background. The lamb’s mother is right near by, making sure that I do no harm to her lamb. I am wearing a sweater that I designed myself and knitted by hand using my own hand-spun yarn. When I wore this sweater people have ordered scarves or hats of a similar yarn, because they liked the yarns that I spun and used in the sweater. I made the sweater in the winter of 1994-1994 and have been wearing it ever since, and it looks the same. I wear it like a coat and wear a thinner sweater under it and I’m very very warm.

My Aunt Julia was visiting us in 1956, with her dear friends Lu and Lo Armstrong and their friend, Amy L. Ray. I am pretty sure that it was Amy who had a camera with her and took this picture. I loved to bang on a pail to call the sheep so that we could show them off to friends and family who visited our farm in Southern VT.

Our son, Seth, and our daughter, Eliza, were playing with empty plastic bags following a Collins’ Family July 4th Picnic on our Uncle Lyle’s lake front property. They were delighting in the task of catching the wind in the clear plastic food bags they found lying around. I delighted in the fact that they were very happy to make a game out of catching the wind. I asked them to wave to me at one point and they did. This card comes as a post card for $.50 each or 12 for $5.00. I also have them as blank greeting cards at $3.00 each.