This afternoon after church, Heather, Katie and I went and visited our friend Amy who has a large, beautiful sheep farm. She has mostly Finn sheep, many of which had had lambs recently. Two of her ewes had quintuples. These were beautiful, dainty little lambs, many of which had patches of white, brown and black wool. They frolicked as only lambs can, running sideways and their tails, indeed, shaking swiftly in two (or was it three or four?) little shakes.
Amy's friend was there with daughter and grandchildren, and Amy gave the children a spinning demonstration. The house was quiet and tidy, the afternoon sun shining through the windows, and there seemed something timeless about the spinning wheel turning, and the wool twisting into yarn. Though sheep are a controversial animal in Scottish history, the dying and spinning of wool seemed something my ancestors would have done. Certainly they knew how to spin and weave their own cloth, their clothes, plaids, blankets, etc. And while ruminating over these things, I was reminded of a story my Gaelic teacher Donald told me, how when he was a lad they had a bottle baby named Bella who had a fondness for oat cakes. She lived twenty years and had, I think he said, thirty-eight lambs. An admirable ewe, to be sure!
Here's a picture of our own two Finn sheep (one black, one white. The third large white one is half Finn half baby-doll)
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