fine wool

These guys are at the other end of the fiber spectrum from the Lincolns. There were merinos and Rambouillets and I can't tell you which these are. (note to self: try not to be so overwhelmed by being around the critters that you can't take a snap to document things!)

Fine wool has a lot more lanolin (also known as wool grease) than a stronger wool like Lincoln. Lanolin holds on to dirt with a vice-like grip -- which would be why these guys look dirty -- they are dirty. Sometimes a fine-wool fleece is 50% or more grease/dirt, by weight.....

(Digression -- sometimes people are bamboozled into buying yarn "with the lanolin!" as it is supposedly more waterproof that way. I have washed wool. I am here to tell you that a lock of wool full of lanolin will sink into the wash water a WHOLE lot faster than a clean lock. That clean lock may float until hell freezes over, but the greasy one is going down, fast. So -- in addition to NOT being "more waterproof", that yarn with lanolin is going to be a dirt magnet. Don't buy it. Unless it is really cheap and you love it otherwise, and then *wash* it before you knit....)

Anyway, back to these big guys. Being rams, I suppose they are obnoxious, but doesn't this guy look sweet?




















Love the horns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



















I really wanna shave this guy's topknot -- it looks so ridiculous. He makes me think of an kindly but rather foolish gentleman in a nineteenth-century comedy of manners.....

















This lovely girl is somewhere in the middle of the fine/strong wool scale. Not as fine-fibered or as greasy as a merino or Rambouillet, not as long/strong as a Lincoln. Once again my failure to document is embarassing. I believe she is either a Corriedale or a Romney. We have lots of both, in Michigan....

Her stylist didn't do the best job with her bangs.

Don't you love her little nose and mouth?